related to message 16.
Is Phoebe A Kuiper Belt Object?
by David Jewitt
Last updated Jun 2006
Phoebe is a 200 km scale irregular satellite of Saturn. With a retrograde orbit (inclination 178 deg), Phoebe cannot have formed in a Saturn-associated accretion disk and, instead, is inferred to have been captured from an independent orbit around the Sun... The two main possibilities are that... Phoebe was captured from heliocentric orbit near Saturn, probably in association with planet formation itself... OR... Phoebe was captured from a more distant reservoir, possibly the Kuiper Belt. We do not possess any way to decide clearly between these possibilities. Recently, Kuiper Belt capture has been widely publicised and two (not wholly convincing) strands of evidence have been supplied.
151 posted on
08/26/2006 5:51:48 PM PDT by
SunkenCiv
(updated my FR profile on Thursday, August 10, 2006. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
To: SunkenCiv
The People's Cube has already weighed in on the Pluto story.
152 posted on
08/26/2006 7:22:58 PM PDT by
Berosus
("There is no beauty like Jerusalem, no wealth like Rome, no depravity like Arabia."--the Talmud)
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