The most famous dwarf planet is Pluto but not many people know about Ceres. Ceres is located between Mars and Jupiter in the asteroid belt. There are many interesting facts surrounding this dwarf planet such as: it was the first asteroid to be discovered in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi. Piazzi was an Italian astronomer and catholic priest.
Ceres was named after the Roman goddess of agriculture. It has an orbital period of 4.6 Earth years and a day on Ceres is 9 hours and 4 minutes. It makes up ⅓ of the total size of the asteroid belt just by itself. It has a heavily cratered surface however there are few large craters. This means that Ceres is very old, 4.573 billion years to be exact.
Finally, one of the most interesting aspects of Ceres is the potential for habitability. It is not actively being described as a potential new home but there is the most amount of water than any other planet in the solar system. There are areas on the surface called brine pockets that could be used to habitat life.
What do you find most interesting about the dwarf planet Ceres?
Here we see Ceres as compared to the size of the Moon and of Earth.
The Oort cloud is located in the most distant part of our solar system. It is so far away that it is thought to be multiples times farther from the Sun than the outermost parts of the Kuiper Belt. One thing that makes the Oort Cloud unique is that the objects within it do not fall more or less on the same plane that most other objects in our solar system orbit on. It is instead thought to be like a large spherical shell that encapsulates everything else in our solar system.
Because the Oort cloud is so far away, it is thought that comets with extremely long periods of orbit around the Sun originate from it. One example is the comet nicknamed Siding Spring. This comet passed Mars in 2014, and is not thought to return to the inner solar system for more than 740,000 years.
Although we are fairly certain of the existence of the Oort Cloud, it is so far away that no object has actually been observed in this area. However, as technological advances continue to occur at an exponential rate, hopefully we will possess sufficient technology to gather more information about the region of the distant solar system that we call the Oort Cloud.
Pluto is one of the six dwarf planets that we have currently identified in our solar system, and it was the first object discovered in the Kuiper belt. It was discovered in 1930 and was initially declared to be the ninth planet. However, when other objects were discovered in the Kuiper belt (like the dwarf planet Eris), people began to doubt whether Pluto was actually worthy of the title of a planet. Eventually, in 2006, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of its title and classified it as a dwarf planet. However, Pluto still has several claims to fame. It is currently the ninth largest object that is directly orbiting the Sun and the tenth most massive object orbiting the Sun. It is the largest trans-Neptunian object (by volume) and has five moons. Its moons are Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. Because Charon is so similar to Pluto in mass, they are considered to be a binary system, as the center of mass of the system does not exist within Pluto. Currently, we do not know a ton of information about Pluto, as only one flyby in 2015 has been conducted. Hopefully we can launch new missions to learn more about the former planet and its uniqueness.
Figure 1. Artist depiction of the build-up of space debris over time.
Now that humanity has reached a stage where we can send equipment and spacecraft to space quite frequently, there is a concern about the build-up of debris around the Earth. The Department of Defense keeps surveillance of more than 27,000 pieces of rogue debris that are orbiting within the near-Earth environment. These pieces of “space junk” are traveling at speeds of the magnitude of tens of thousands of miles per hour-fast enough to cause structural damage to nearby spacecraft.
Knowing this, one might ask: “How is the International Space Station orbiting Earth without taking such dangerous impacts?” NASA has created a decision-making hierarchy to which the space station can determine if evasive maneuvers are required to avoid potentially severe impacts. For example, an imaginary pizza box (dimensions of 2.5 x 30 x 30 miles) surrounds the space station. Should predictions show that a piece of debris (4 in or larger in diameter/length) should strike the station, they are capable of activating thrusters for a short while to get out of the way. One thing to note is that there are thousands more of debris that exist that aren’t tracked due to their small sizes; however, the shielding around the station is capable of withstanding hits from them. Regardless, constant monitoring is required to protect the spacecraft and humans residing in this field of debris.
So, what happens if we continue to add space junk without methods to clean some of it up? The Kessler Syndrome offers one perspective for this thought. It essentially says that there is a point at which the trash orbiting Earth sets off a chain reaction where more debris is continuously created. For instance, say that a satellite is obliterated by either floating debris or asteroids, resulting in numerous pieces of material flying in all directions. If we reach the point identified by the Kessler Syndrome, the satellite pieces could strike other pieces of space junk, causing more splitting of trash. We must look into ways to remove and prevent space junk from continuing to accrue as future launches may face unnecessary damage and casualties.
Figure 1. Pictures of Saturn’s moon Pan by the Cassini spacecraft on March 7th, 2017.
Perhaps the moon in Figure 1 looks like a miniature version of Saturn. Maybe even an empanada. Saturn’s innermost moon Pan was first identified in 1990 in a photograph captured by the Voyager 2 spacecraft (which flew in 1981). Pan has an average diameter of 17.6 miles and orbits about 83,000 miles apart from Saturn. As for the bulge that exists around Pan, computer models show that as Pan formed, materials/particles from the rings of Saturn fell and attached along the moon’s equator. Over time, these materials built up and formed a “disk”.
So, why is this moon named “Pan”? According to Greek mythology, Pan is the Greek god of nature and has the appearance of a man with hooves and hind legs as that of a goat (known as a satyr). This name is ideal as Pan is a shepherd moon that maintains the Encke gap in Saturn’s A-ring (as shown in Figure 2). Essentially, Pan serves as a natural satellite that maintains the 200-mile wide Encke gap clear of particles as it orbits Saturn every 13.8 hours.
Additionally, Pan creates “wakes” in the rings of materials on both sides of it. Particles that pass close to Pan receive a gravitational boost of sorts. This produces waves throughout the rings, and these waves can interact downstream to form wakes (or areas of bunched-up materials). Although it is not clearly depicted below, the edges of the Eckne Gap have wavy edges. By obtaining occupation profiles from instruments on the Voyager, scientists were able to see light-dark variations that Pan is creating wakes in the rings. All-in-all, it is impressive how such a small moon can create such noticeable effects around Saturn.
Figure 2. Depiction of Pan residing in the Encke gap inside of Saturn’s A-ring.
Rocky asteroids contain metals that are commonly used on Earth. What if there was a way to mine those metals from asteroids and bring them back to Earth? The potential gains seem promising, as even a small asteroid can contain enough industrial metals to be worth trillions of dollars. A large asteroid could contain enough […]
On this Tuesday, April 5th, an asteroid the size of a house flew by the Earth. This asteroid flew by 79,000 miles away from us, which is actually pretty close. That distance is around 1/3 the distance between us and the Moon. Although there is always some panic that an asteroid could hit Earth, this asteroids path was carefully calculated, and assurance was given that no collision was possible. Although this seems like a mere asteroid passing, this actually gave astronomers the opportunity to collect a lot of data on asteroids that had not been previously calculated. The last time something similar to this happened was when the asteroid blew up near Russia in 2013. One thing that NASA is not testing is whether the impact on an asteroid would change its direction. Nasa launched a spacecraft in November of last year that plans to collide with an asteroid on September 26 of this year. It plans to travel to the Didymos asteroid system.
Perhaps one of the best chances of finding life on another world in our solar system, one of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus, is a world of great interest. Although considerably smaller than our own Moon, Enceladus is a small world composed of a top layer of ice, which is on average 20 km thick across the whole moon. However, beneath the icy surface lies a liquid water ocean composed of the chemical building blocks for life. At Enceladus’s south pole, massive geysers spew salty water vapor, organic compounds, and frozen ice particles far enough that they go into space, helping form Saturn’s E-Ring. What’s even more interesting is why these geysers spew liquid from the subsurface oceans: tidal heating. Similar to how Earth experiences tidal forces from the gravitational pull of the Sun and the Moon, Enceladus is close enough to Saturn that the tidal forces imposed on Enceladus by the giant cause enough friction to generate heat within the moon’s layers. Without Saturn, it’s very likely that Enceladus’s ocean would have been frozen within 30 million years; however, the heat from the friction has kept it warm enough to remain liquid, and this is the main point of interest when it comes to considering life on Enceladus.
The reason Enceladus is thought to hold alien life is due to the organic compounds within the subsurface global ocean underneath the thick base layer of ice. It’s quite apparent that Enceladus is well outside the habitable zone of life for our solar system, so the discovery of any signs of life could open the possibility for life beyond Earth. If life so happens to be similar to the makeup of life on Earth, theorists could conclude that life must have originated on a place other than Earth and was simply brought to our solar system by chance. However, if life turns out to be much more different than that on Earth, it could stand to reason that there is much more alien life elsewhere in the universe. I think these are both interesting theories because it gives even people who aren’t astronomers a lot to think about. If life was able to originate on two worlds in completely different environments, would more people be inclined to believe in life beyond the solar system? Would we want to explore Enceladus and the life it has to offer or would we be wary knowing the destruction humans can have? Another important thing to think about is the timing in terms of how long it takes life to develop. What if there had originally been life on Enceladus, but the timelines of life on that moon and Earth are just much too far apart that they never coincide? Whatever the questions are, we can only wait until we develop the technology to properly explore worlds such as Enceladus and the mysteries they hold.
Pluto is a very weird, and unknown “mass”. Since being alive, our generation has known Pluto as the 9th planet of the solar system, and now as a giant rock, or dwarf planet. Despite this, Pluto has some very cool features that aren’t seen other places in the solar system, such as Ice Volcanos. Although these seem like a mere cool edition of this dwarf, this actually gives astrologists evidence that Pluto might have some inner functioning heating. These volcanoes erupt Methane and Ammonia, two Hydrogen compounds that as learned in class are very evident in the outer solar system. Also interesting to astrologists is the fact that these volcanoes must’ve formed recently. This was concluded because craters around these volcanoes show no sign of being filled or erased. One possible cause of the cryovolcanism (which means ice volcanoes), could be cracks and fractures underneath the crust of Pluto. This all is significant because this provides striking evidence that Pluto might not be dead. This could provide astronomers with loads of data and research in the future, when a deeper dive into Pluto is more easily accessible.
Amateur Astronomer Kai Ly used images from the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope taken in 2003 to identify a previously undiscovered Satellite orbiting Jupiter, the first planetary moon discovered by an amateur astronomer. The telescope used was the 3.6 meter Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope located on Mauna Kea. Ly used an image captured in February 2003 to identify a set of 3 possible moons. Ly then cross-referenced these bodies with images taken by in March and April of the same year, noticing that one of the potential moons was consistent across all of the photos. He then used orbit tracking to confirm that this body orbited Jupiter. The moon has since been dubbed EJc0061, and belongs to the Carme Cluster. Scientist estimates point to the moon having a diameter of a few miles across.
