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Solar System > Dwarf Planets and Asteriods > Flashcards

Dwarf Planets and Asteriods Flashcards

1
Q

Why would Dawn have gone to Vesta but not Pallas

A

Pallas has a high orbital eccentricity which makes it relatively inaccessible

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2
Q

What is the naming convention for Jovian trojans

what is the numerically amazing fact about Jovian trojans

A

Ones at L4 are named after Greeks in the war

Ones at L5 are named after Trojans in the war

There may be as many Jovian trojans as there are asteriods in the main belt

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3
Q

What are the names of Pluto’s moons

A

Charon (1978)

Nix (2005)

Hydra (2005)

Kerberos (2011)

Styx (2012)

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3
Q

who discovered Charon

what is its diameter

A

James Christy

1207km

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4
Q

What are the five known dwarf planets

A

Ceres (1801)

Pluto (1930)

Haumea (2004)

Makemake (2005)

Eris (2005)

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4
Q

What is the name of the classical Kuiper belt objects which lie in orbits untouched by Neptune (as opposed to the resonant Kuiper belt objects)

A

cubewanos

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5
Q

What is the current estimate for the diameter of Pluto (and Eris for comparison)

A

Pluto - 2372km

Eris - 2326km +- 12km (but Eris is denser and more massive)

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7
Q

What is the smallest dwarf planet

diameter?

an distance from sun in AU

A

Ceres

938km

2.77 AU

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8
Q

What is the name for the objects that exist 30 to well beyond 100 AU with high orbital eccentricities, as a result of gravitational affects of the gas giants

A

Scattered Disk Objects (SDOs)

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9
Q

When was Chiron discovered, and how big

what was it the first of to be discovered

A

1977

233km

First Centaur to be discovered

Centaurs are minor planets orbitting the asteriod belt and the Kuiper belt

Chiron is named after the Centaur Chiron in Greek mythology

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10
Q

What are the most common types of asteriods

What is the largest of this type

What are the other principle types

A

C-type carbonaceous

Hygiea

Ceres is a C-group, G-type

S-type (stony objects)

M-type (metallic objects)

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11
Q

What do you call a minor planet or moon that shares an orbit with another larger object but doesn’t collide -

and why doesn’t it collide

Which planet has the only known satellites bearing these objects

When was one discovered around earth

A

a Trojan

It doesn’t collide because its at a Lagrangian point (L4 or L5) 60degrees ahead and behind the main body

Saturn

in 2011 NASA announced earth had a trojan 2010TK7 (300m diameter in L4 position 60 degrees ahead of earth)

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12
Q

What spacecraft is in orbit around Ceres

when did it get there

when was it at Vesta

A

Dawn

6 Mar 2015

Vesta - 16 July 2011

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14
Q

What are the 5 biggest asteriods (and dwarf planet) in the asteriod belt in terms of diameter

A

Ceres

Pallas ( but its less massive than Vesta)

Vesta

Hygiea

Interamnia

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15
Q

In terms of AU, how far out is the Kuiper belt

how big is it compared to the asteriod belt

What are the three dwarf planets in the Kuiper belt

What two interesting moons are thought to have originated here

A

30-50 AU

20 x as wide and 20-200 times as massive as the asteriod belt

Pluto, Haumea and Makemake

Triton and Phoebe

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16
Q

What comet studying mission was launced on Ariane 5 in March 2004

What was the name of its lander

A

Rosetta

Philae

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17
Q

What comet did R reach, and when did the lander perform its historic touch down

When did the lander wake up

For kudos what other major asteroid did R do a flyby of (and when)

A

67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko

12 Nov 2014

14 June 2015

Lutetia (July 2010) - named after the Roman name for Paris

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18
Q

What is particularly special about Vesta

A

It is also the brightest asteroid visible from earth

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19
Q

Who discovered Ceres and when

Why was it called Ceres

Under what circumstances did he discover it, and who else was looking for it

A

Giuseppe Piazzi at Palermo on 1 January 1801

Ceres was the Roman patron goddess of Sicily and Piazzi was from the University of Palermo

He was working on a catalogue of fixed stars, when one of his stars moved!

Baron Franz Xavier von Zach of Gotha, convinced of a planet Mars and Jupiter, assembled a group of leading astronomers in 1800, in Germany, with each taking a piece of the sky to survey. They called themselves the ‘Celestial Police’

Piazzi, was not connected, and his discovery was accidental

20
Q

What is the diameter of Ceres

How many AU is Ceres from the Sun

A

938km

2.77AU

21
Q

Who came up with the name ‘asteroid’ and why

A

William Herschel in 1802, because other than their rapid movement they appeared indistinguishable from stars. Therefore asteroid comes from asteroeides meaning “star-like”

but they continued to be called planets from several decades - this was only dropped once so many had been found in the early 1850s

22
Q

Who discovered Pallas, and when

What else did he famously discover and when?

Under what circumstances was Pallas discovered

A

Heinrich Olbers in 1802

He also discovered Vesta in 1807

Olbers was one of two astronomers who had confirmed that Ceres was an asteroid. It was whilst attempting to locate Ceres that he noticed Pallas, coincidentally passing Ceres at that time. (It first it was estimated to be 3,380km in diameter - how wrong eh)

23
Q

Can you name all the Planets as known between 1807 and 1845

A

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars

Vesta, Juno, Ceres, Pallas

Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus

24
Q

What probable Dwarf Planet is known as the anti-Pluto because it is locked in the same resonance, but is out of phase (i.e. at aphelion when pluto is at perihelion), and with orbit points almost opposite direction from pluto’s

What is the name of its large moon

A

Orcus (The Etruscan equivalent of Pluto - and later an alternate name for Pluto)

Vanth

25
Q

Which dwarf planet is most notable for its elipsoid shape

A

Haumea

(It was the one which has the moon, informally known as a Santa)

Now its known to have two moons, Hi’aka and Namaka

26
Q

Where was the discovery of Pluto made

Who proposed the name

A

Lowell Observatory

Venetia Burney (1918–2009), a then eleven-year-old schoolgirl in Oxford, England, who was interested in classical mythology

(he suggested it in a conversation with her grandfather Falconer Madan, a former librarian at the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, who passed the name to astronomy professor Herbert Hall Turner, who cabled it to colleagues in the United States.)

27
Q

How far out is Eris in AU

What was it known as informally before being called Eris

A

97.6 (one of, if the not the furthest object in the solar system known - although it is nearly at Apehelion)

Xena (after the warrior princess)

28
Q

What is a Dwarf Planet

A

A dwarf planet is a planetary-mass object that is neither a planet nor a natural satellite. That is, it is in direct orbit of the Sun, and is massive enough for its shape to be in hydrostatic equilibrium under its own gravity, but has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit

Because only Pluto and Ceres have been observed well enough to confirm this, others have been confirmed on other grounds

Eris, becuase its more massive than Pluto

and Makemake and Haumea, because at the time they were the suffiently bright, considering reasonable expectations of albedo

It is controversial that the IAU has not granted more, equally justified objects, Dwarf Planet status

29
Q

What was the date of Pluto’s perihelion

In what year did Neptune become closer to the Sun (and for how long in Pluto’s orbit is Neptune further away)

A

Sep 1989

11 Feb 1999 Neptune becomes closer

20 years

30
Q

What is Pluto’s orbital period

A

248 years

31
Q

How close is Charon to centre of Pluto?

For kudos, who close to the Barycentre

A

19,571km to centre of Pluto

17,526 km to Barycentre (mean)

32
Q

What is the mean distance in AU of Pluto from the Sun

for Kudos, how close does it get, and how far away does it get

With what angle is its orbit inclined to the eliptic

A

39.4AU (remember just a bit under 40)

close as 29.7AU (just remember just under 30 as good enough)

as far as 49.7AU (just remember just under 50 as good enough)

17 degrees

33
Q

What is a Plutino

What type of object is in a 1:2 resonance with Neptune

A

A Plutino is a KBO in a 2:3 resonance with Neptune

A Twotino is in a 1:2 resonance

34
Q

What is ‘the Kernel’?

What hypothesis might it support?

A

The Kernel is an anomalous concentration of icy objects in the Kuiper belt at 44AU.

It has low inclination and low eccentricities, and was initially thought to be a result of a collision in the Kuiper belt. However, this explanation has some signficant difficulties.

Another hypothesis is that the cluster was once gravitionally associated with Neptune, but got seperated during a gravitional interaction between Neptune and a third hypothetic ice giant called Hades as it was ejected from the solar system

35
Q

What is the orbital inclination of Pluto

A

17.14 degrees

36
Q

What is the inclination of equator (spin axis) of Pluto

A

-57.47 degrees

37
Q

What is Pluto’s rotation period

A

6.39 days

38
Q

What was the name of the famous meteor caught on dash cams over Russia (when)

How big was it

A

Chelyabinsk meteor - 15 Feb 2013

(it caused Over 7,200 damaged buildings, collapsed factory roof, shattered windows)

It was a 20m diameter impactor with a mass of abour 12-13,000 tonnes - it was equivalent to 500kt of TNT

39
Q

What famous meteor shows do you associate with the following months

August

December

A

August - Perseids

December - Geminids

40
Q

What asteriod family is believed to have been the source of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs

What type of asteroids are these.

What is the main asteroid, and what is its other claim to fame

A

Flora

S - Silicaceous (stony) asteroid

Flora is the name of the large asteroid (136x136x113km)

It is the closest of the large asteroids to the Sun

41
Q

What Japanese mission arrived at an asteroid in 2018

What was the name of the asteroid

What is the name of the landers involved

A

Hayabusa 2

Ryugu

The landers are Minerva-II (1) & (2) and Mascot

42
Q

What is the name of the Japanese Mission that arrived at an asteroid in 2005

What was the name of th asteroid

A

Hayabusa 1

Asteroid Itokawa

43
Q

What is the main determinant of an asteroids composition

In what way

A

How close it is to the Sun

  • The asteroids that are nearest the sun are mostly made of carbon, with smaller amounts of nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen,
  • The ones further away are made up of silicate rock.
44
Q

What diamond shaped asteroid was reached in 2018, and what was the name of the spacecraft that reached it.

What is the nickname of its funny bump

Why is this asteroid important

A

Bennu (500m diameter) - and its funny bump ‘witch mole’, because it was reached near halloween and it looks like a witches mole.

Reached by Osiris-Rex spacecraft

Its an important asteroid, because it crosses earth’s path, and could hit earth in the next few centuries, so scientists want to discover as much about it as possible.

45
Q

What is this, and when was it reached

A

Arrokoth

It had the unofficial name Ultima Thule (pronounced ‘Tool-ie’) first, which is prob more memorable

Now its two lobes are being referred to as Ultima (the larger) and Thule (the smaller)

In its original use, the term Ultima Thule is ancient, first used during the Roman Empire and also popular during the medieval period, referencing lands that are both very distant and very cold

reached by New Horizons on 1 Jan 2019

Solar System (24 decks)

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