Facts Concerning The Solar System: Lattimer, AST 248, Lecture 17 - p.1/22
Facts Concerning The Solar System: Lattimer, AST 248, Lecture 17 - p.1/22
Fragment G
HST 7/18/1994
Shoemaker-Levy 9
HST 7/7/1994
Orbits
• Hyperbolic: pass Sun once, depart forever
• Elliptical: periodic
• Peri-/Aphelion: closest/farthest solar approach
Origin
• Short-period come from Kuiper Belt, 35,000
icy bodies larger than 100 km, 30-100 AU
• Long-period come from Oort comet cloud,
∼ 1012 comets, 30,000 AU–1 lt. yr.
• Most formed within inner solar system, then
pushed outwards by repeated near encounters Lattimer, AST 248, Lecture 17 – p.5/22
•
Asteroids
Also called minor planets or planetoids, largely lying within the orbits of Mars and
Jupiter (main asteroid belt).
• Objects lying outside Neptune are called trans-Neptunian objects, centaurs or
Kuiper-Belt objects.
• The first asteroid to be discovered was Ceres on Jan 1, 1801.
• Total asteroid mass is about 4% of the Moon’s mass. Ceres is about 32% of this.
The first 4 asteroids have 51% of the total.
• Can be roughly classified by spectral type:
C-type carbonaceous, 75%
S-type silicaceous, 17%
L-type metallic, 8%
These percentages do not reflect true proportions, but only observed proportions;
some are easier to see than others.
• About a third of asteroids are members of families that have similar orbits.
Probably they form as a result of collisions between asteroids. They last for about
a billion years.
• Asteroids are slowly lost due to collisions with planets and to gravitational
encounters that eject them from solar system.
• Trojan asteroids collect in Lagrangian points (stable gravitational minima) 60◦
ahead of and behind Jupiter in its orbit. Similarly for Mars, Earth and Venus.
• Asteroids are given a number in order of their discovery and the discoverer or the
IAU may name them. Lattimer, AST 248, Lecture 17 – p.6/22
Lattimer, AST 248, Lecture 17 – p.7/22
Lattimer, AST 248, Lecture 17 – p.8/22
951 Gaspra
243 Ida
433 Eros
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