Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Eris and Pluto: Two Peas in a Pod

About Dwarf Planets

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Or two dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt…

Eris — that pesky big dwarf planet that caused all the brouhaha about planets, dwarf planets, plutoids and the like — has gotten a closer look by a team of astronomers from several different universities, and guess what? Eris and Pluto have a lot in common. Eris appears to have a frozen surface, predominantly covered in nitrogen ice and methane, just like Pluto.

The scientists integrated two years of work conducted in Northern Arizona University’s new ice research laboratory, in addition to astronomical observations of Eris from the Multiple Mirror Telescope Observatory from Mount Hopkins, Ariz., and of Pluto from Steward Observatory from Kitt Peak, Ariz.

“There are only a handful of such labs doing this kind of work in the world,” said Stephen Tegler, from NAU and lead author of “Methane and Nitrogen Abundances on Eris and Pluto,” which was presented this week at the American Astronomical Society’s Divison of Planetary Science meeting. “By studying surfaces of icy dwarf planets, we hope to get a better understanding of the processes that affect their surfaces.”

NAU’s ice lab grew optically clear ice samples of methane, nitrogen, argon, methane-nitrogen mixtures, and methane-argon mixtures in a vacuum chamber at temperatures as low as minus 390 degrees Fahrenheit to simulate the planets’ cold surfaces. Light passed through the samples revealed the “chemical fingerprints” of molecules and atoms, which were compared to telescopic observations of sunlight reflected from the surfaces of Eris and Pluto.

“By combining the astronomical data and laboratory data, we found about 90 percent of Eris’s icy surface is made up of nitrogen ice and about 10 percent is made up of methane ice, which is not all that different from Pluto,” said David Cornelison, coauthor and physicist at Missouri State University.

The scientists say the recent findings will directly enhance NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft mission, currently scheduled to fly by Pluto in 2015, by lending greater value to the continued research of Eris and Pluto.

Source: Northern Arizona University, DPS

Posted on by Steve Nerlich

Astronomy Without A Telescope – One Potato, Two Potato

Sometimes it’s good to take a break from mind-stretching cosmology models, quantum entanglements or events at 10-23 seconds after the big bang and get back to some astronomy basics. For example, the vexing issue of the potato radius. 

At the recent 2010 Australian Space Science Conference, it was proposed by Lineweaver and Norman that all naturally occurring objects in the universe adopt one of five basic shapes depending on their size, mass and dynamics. Small and low mass objects can be considered Dust – being irregular shapes governed primarily by electromagnetic forces. 

Next up are Potatoes, being objects where accretion by gravity begins to have some effect, though not as much as in the more massive Spheres – which, to quote the International Astronomical Union’s second law of planets, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape. 

Objects of the scale of molecular dust clouds will collapse down into Disks where the sheer volume of accreting material means that much of it can only rotate in a holding pattern around and towards the centre of mass. Such objects may evolve into a star with orbiting planets (or not), but the initial disk structure seems to be a mandatory step in the formation of objects at this scale. 

At the galactic scale you may still have disk structures, such as a spiral galaxy, but usually such large scale structures are too diffuse to form accretion disks and instead cluster in Halos – of which the central bulge of a spiral galaxy is one example. Other examples are globular clusters, elliptical galaxies and even galactic clusters. 

The proposed five major forms that accumulated matter adopts in our universe. Credit: Lineweaver and Norman.

The authors then investigated the potato radius, or Rpot, to identify the transition point from Potato to Sphere, which would also represent the transition point from small celestial object to dwarf planet. Two key issues emerged in their analysis. 

Firstly, it is not necessary to assume a surface gravity of a magnitude necessary to generate hydrostatic equilibrium. For example, on Earth such rock crushing forces only act at 10 kilometres or more below the surface – or to look at it another way you can have a mountain on Earth the size of Everest (9 kilometres), but anything higher will begin to collapse back towards the planet’s roughly spheroid shape. So, there is an acceptable margin where a sphere can still be considered a sphere even if it does not demonstrate complete hydrostatic equilibrium across its entire structure. 

Secondly, the differential strength of molecular bonds affects the yield strength of a particular material (i.e. its resistance to gravitational collapse). 

On this basis, the authors conclude that Rpot for rocky objects is 300 kilometres. However, Rpot for icy objects is only 200 kilometres, due to their weaker yield strength, meaning they more easily conform to a spheroidal shape with less self-gravity. 

Since Ceres is the only asteroid with a radius that is greater than Rpot for rocky objects we should not expect any more dwarf planets to be identified in the asteroid belt. But applying the 200 kilometre Rpot for icy bodies, means there may be a whole bunch of trans-Neptunian objects out there that are ready to take on the title.

Posted on by Abby Cessna

Minor Planets

Main Belt Asteroids
Ceres, the recently promoted dwarf planet in the asteroid belt is still too small to be easily seen by Hubble credit: NASA/ESA/STScI

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Minor planet is a term used to refer to a celestial object – that is not a planet or comet – which orbits the Sun. Found in 1801, Ceres, also known as a dwarf planet, was the first minor planet discovered. The term minor planet has been in use since the 1800’s. Planetoids, asteroids, and minor planets have all been used interchangeably, but the situation became even more confusing when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) committee reclassified minor planets and comets into the new categories of dwarf planets and small solar system bodies. At the same time, the IAU created a new definition of what a planet is, and Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet. Hydrostatic equilibrium – the ability to maintain a roughly spherical shape – is what separates dwarf planets from the more irregularly shaped small solar system bodies. The names become even more confusing because the IAU still recognizes the use of the term minor planets.

Minor planets are extremely common with over 400,000 registered and thousands more found each month. Approximately 15,000 minor planets have been given official names while the rest are numbered. When asteroids were first discovered, they were named after characters from Greek and Roman mythology like Ceres was. At first, astronomers thought that the asteroids, especially Ceres and Pallas were actually planets. Astronomers also created symbols for the first asteroids found. There were symbols created for 14 asteroids and some of them were very complex like Victoria’s symbol, which looks like a plant with three leaves growing out of an off center starburst. Soon, astronomers ran out of mythological names and started christening asteroids after television characters, famous people, and relatives of discoverers. Most names were feminine, attesting to an unnamed  tradition. As the numbers ran into the thousands, scientists started using their pets as inspiration. After an asteroid was named 2309 Mr. Spock, pet’s names were banned. That did not stop the oddness though because names such as 9007 James Bond and 6402 Chesirecat have been suggested and actually accepted.

There are a number of different categories that minor planets fall into including asteroids, Trans-Neptunian objects, and centaurs. There  are various types of asteroids, although most of them can be found in the asteroid belt, which is the region of space between Mars and Jupiter. Trans-Neptunian objects are celestial bodies found orbiting beyond Neptune, and centaurs are celestial bodies with unstable orbits located between Jupiter and Neptune. The categories also overlap, making classifying things a nightmare. For example, Ceres is a dwarf planet and minor planet, additionally it can also be classified as an asteroid.

Universe Today has a number of articles including astronomers find new minor planet and why Pluto is no lone a planet.

You can also check out these articles on asteroids and the solar system.

Astronomy Cast has an episode on the asteroid belt you will want to listen to.

Reference:
Wikipedia