Pluto's Moons Tumble in Orbit, Hubble Measurements Reveal

Guardian ^ | June 3, 2015 | Robert McKie

[lbryce]

Puto Video
http://cdn.theguardian.tv/mainwebsite/2015/04/16/150416pluto_desk.mp4

Pluto’s moons have been tracked closely for the first time, showing that they tumble unpredictably rather than keeping one face fixed on their host planet.

Astronomers also observed that Pluto, whose status was downgraded to a dwarf planet in 2006, might be better regarded as a binary dwarf as it is locked in orbit with its largest moon, called Charon.

The twin system creates an imbalanced and shifting gravitational field, which sends the tiny outer moons spinning chaotically, the measurements from the Hubble space telescope showed.

Target Pluto: fastest spaceship set for epic encounter with our remotest planet Read more “Like good children, our moon and most others keep one face focused attentively on their parent planet,’ said Douglas Hamilton, professor of astronomy at the University of Maryland and a co-author of the study. “What we’ve learned is that Pluto’s moons are more like ornery teenagers who refuse to follow the rules.”

Charon, which has a mass about 11% of that of Pluto, and the planet orbit a common centre of mass every 6.4 days.

[lbryce]

We're learning more about Pluto the closer we get.

[Beowulf9]

Numerical simulation of Nix’s appearance as seen from Pluto shows its wobbly motion. Its pole even flips!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwSFC-aPEG0&feature=youtu.be

[cripplecreek]

Space tater.

[cripplecreek]

If you use the NASA Eyes on the solar system program you can see the odd orbits.

http://eyes.nasa.gov/download.html

[cripplecreek]

[dr_lew]

Thanks for the link. Very interesting, but some of the depictions seem contradictory. They say they sped up the orbit so that one revolution takes 2 seconds, but the star background repeats in about 44 seconds. ( You can see that the sun angle rotates at about 1 rev/ 2 sec, as they state. )

Also, the orbit is a fixed plane, and is even depicted in my Starry Night software, where I can set my POV to Pluto. Charon is in the same plane, and appears quite large, so it eclipses Nix everytime it overtakes it.

I guess they were focusing on the body motion of Nix, and just threw the background in willy-nilly, unless someone can set me straight! ( but I don’t see how ... )

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks lbryce.

· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe ·

Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar ·

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks lbryce.

---

join or quit view topics view or post blog bookmark post new topic subscribe

---