Pluto's Chaotic Moons
Hubble Finds Two Chaotically Tumbling Pluto Moons
“If you lived on one of Pluto’s moons Nix or Hydra, you’d have a hard time setting your alarm clock. That’s because you could not know for sure when, or even in which direction, the sun would rise. A comprehensive analysis of all available Hubble Space Telescope data shows that two of Pluto’s moons, Nix and Hydra, are wobbling unpredictably. Scientists believe the other two moons, Kerberos, and Styx, are likely in a similar situation, pending further study.”
– News briefing materials
– Resonant interactions and chaotic rotation of Pluto’s small moons, Nature (it costs $32 to read this article if you do not subscribe to Nature)
– Update: The text is online here – for free.
Do moon’s orbit planets or not? I’m confused lol
This thing may have more moons than Jupiter?
And if the point the body’s revolve around is between the bodies are they both moons of each other or what?
Pluto and Sharon revolve around a point that is not contained in either body?
Pluto probably doesn’t have any more moons within the orbit of Hydra, as gravitational effects would tend to kick them out of the system. There may be more that are further out from Hydra, but they would have to be quite small.
Some call Pluto and Charon a “binary planet” because they orbit a point in space, which is the center of mass of the two bodies, called a barycenter (actually, all bodies orbiting one another have a barycenter. The Earth-Moon barycenter is about 1,700 kilometers beneath the surface of the Earth. The differnece here is that the barycenter is in space between Pluto and Charon, and not within Pluto).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
Yes, all the other moons in the plutonian system orbit the Pluto – Charon barycenter.
So Pluto and Sharon are “binary dwarf planets” right???
I thought Pluto wasn’t a planet at all??
Some would call them that, or something similar.
I think it’s simpler to just consider the larger to be the planet, or dwarf planet, if it is a binary system.
To be a bit pedantic, everything orbiting and the body being orbited all orbit the barycenter of the system. Just as Pluto and Charon orbit their barycenter, the Sun and Earth orbit their barycenter.
You’re quite right. Since the intricacies of gravitational interactions can rapidly become very complex, I chose to sacrifice complexity in order to give a simple answer.
Despite it no longer being a planet, I think Pluto and its moons win the prize for having the most interesting orbital system in our solar system. There’s no doubt that a handful or two PhD dissertations lie in that system.
Only a hair over 5 weeks until New Horizons makes its close approach to Pluto.
I don’t know, Saturn has a few moons that could be contenders:
-Epimetheus and Janus, which share the same orbit.
-Calypso and Telesto, which orbit Saturn at the L4 and L5 points of Saturn’s moon Tethys.
-Similarly, Helene and Polydeuces, at the L4 and L5 points of Dione.
But you’re right – there’s so much more in store for us to learn about Pluto and its moons in the next 5 weeks. It will be amazing!
Maybe a bit more complex, Yale? apparently the barycenter, being a function of six bodies, is not a fixed point in space.
Pretty cool.
It’s Doug, and yes, the barycenter does move as the bodies in the plutonian system move around in their orbits.
Interestingly enough, the barycenter of the solar system is sometimes not within the Sun.
Opps! Sorry about the name.
And I had no idea that the solar system barycenter can be outside of the sun.
Jurassic Park (2/10) Movie CLIP – Chaos Theory (1…: https://youtu.be/n-mpifTiPV4
Certain people on this forum have far too much available time.
Not naming names 🙂
I wonder how this factors into the theories on the moonlets’ origins? There is a theory that they were formed from the same part of the protosolar nebulae as Pluto and Charon. However, any such theory would now have to explain the dynamic features of these moons.
Would the rotating gravitational field of the combined Pluto/Charon system be enough to disrupt sideral rotation of such small bodies?
When do we get the “Better than Hubble” pics from New Horizons? I thought that was supposed to be 3 weeks ago.
We currently are.
Keep in mind that Hubble’s best is fuzzy and indistinct dots, and New Horizons is just now getting the slightly sharper, but still fuzzy and indistinct images. Details will improve tremendously over the next week or two, and rapid progressive increases in clarity and resolution will be apparent soon.
I haven’t seen any New Horizons Imagery in about a month. May 15 was ‘Better than Hubble’ date.
I am anxious to see those pictures.
And when does Horizons go into orbit around this interesting little system?
We did make it in time to study it atmosphere before it froze right?
New Horizons isn’t going into orbit in the Pluto system. It has too much energy and too little fuel. It’s performing a fly-by only.
No orbit, it’s a fly-by. They are hoping some atmosphere is still there.
New Horizons has more work to do after Pluto as it sails into the Kuiper Belt, with the goal of doing a flyby of at least one KBO. It’s tricky though because of the logistics and low amount of fuel left by that phase of the mission.
I’ve not seen anything further on the attempt to identify possible secondary targets?
I know they were looking at multiple targets with the hopes that at least one would be accessible, two if possible, but of course the odds are much lower of being able to reach two especially with limited fuel.
The last thing I heard is that three KBOs were identified as targets, and a primary target had at least been tentatively been identified:
http://goo.gl/oSw4sG
You can see pictures at the following link of Pluto images from New Horizons with higher resolution than the Hubble images of Pluto:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/…
It should also be noted that New Horizons energy resources put a severe limit on how quickly it can transmit data back to Earth. As a result, data transmission is pretty darn slow. Couple that with the time required to optimize the images and to analyze said images, and we shouldn’t expect to get next day or same day images as we get with Curiosity.
Try these links.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/...
Pluto Picture of the Day
http://www.boulder.swri.edu…
Mission Twitter Feed @NASANEWHORIZONS
PI Twitter Feed @NEWHORIZONS2015
Countdown to Pluto http://WWW.SEEPLUTONOW.COM
Last week, I sat in a presentation by Dr. Alan Stern, he said that the pictures are posted to their sites as soon as they are processed. There is going to be a “torrent” of data coming in from the spacecraft over the next six months. Then it will be years before it is all looked over in detail. Dr Stern said that “textbooks will be written and others updated” with all the new information expected. It is a great time to be interested in this topic.
For me this is the most exciting mission since Voyager. All of the Mars rover missions, Cassini etc. were great, but there is nothing more exciting than getting the first ever look at a planet. Dwarf of no Pluto has been almost a complete mystery and it is about to step out from behind the curtain.
This particular press release really bugs me because it’s done something common with many Hubble press releases: presented artist’s conceptions in a way that makes them look like real images. If you look at the actual press release you have all these images of an oblong moon with surface features showing different orientations. But you really have to dig into one of the captions to see that this is an artificial image-wrap. Hubble can’t see any features like that.
Anyone who mistook these painfully obvious CGI renderings for real images needs to get their eyes checked.
I am certain the general public has no idea those are rendered. A quick poll of non-scientists and non-space buffs around me confirms that.