In the perpetual twilight of the outer reaches of our Solar System, our Sun shines simply with a faint, distant fire, and appears to be just one especially large star, swimming in a sea of countless other brilliant, silvery stellar lights. When our Solar System was first forming, some 4.6 billion years ago, strange things were happening. newborn planetary building blocks, called planetesimals–migrated from where they originated, and exploded with each other, sometimes merging, aim sometimes crashing into each other catastrophically, tearing each other to pieces. The beautiful, big, blue banded ice giant Neptune, the most distant of the eight major planets from our Sun, is known to have exerted an influence on our baby Solar System, as it wandered through this “cosmic shooting gallery.” “primordial. .” In April 2017, astronomers announced that they had made a major discovery about the mysterious birth and evolution of icy bodies in the remote, frozen space of our Solar System. Kuiper belt–home to a myriad of dancing comet nuclei beyond the orbit of Neptune. The astronomers said they had unlocked unique evidence that Neptune’s migration during the age of ancient planet formation, in the domain of our young Sun, was a “gentle and tranquil” journey, and not the rampage of a ferocious giant. as previously suggested. in other studies.
“It’s a kinder, gentler Neptune,” commented astronomer Dr. Meg. schwamb on a April 4, 2017 Gemini Observatory press release. Dr. Schwamb went on to explain that the new result leaves little doubt that Neptune’s migration through the early Solar System was a benevolent and gentle sweep, rather than the violent and catastrophic rampage of a big bully.
The study focused on strange “oddball” duos of loose objects, called planetoids, inhabiting the deep freeze of the dimly lit outer regions of our Solar System. The astronomers propose, in an article published in the April 4, 2017 issue of the journal nature astronomythat these loosely bound objects were likely guided by Neptune’s gentle gravitational nudges into their present orbits in the dark and in the distance. Kuiper belt.
The research team, led by Dr Wes Frazier from Queen’s University Belfast, UK, studied data obtained from the Gemini North Frederick C. Gillett Telescope and Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT). Both telescopes are positioned over the inactive mauna kea volcano in hawaii The team measured the colors of the new “oddball” Cold Classical Kuiper Belt Object (CCKBO) duets as part of the Survey on the origins of the colors of the outer solar system (CoL-OSSOS).
“Oddball” objects are members of a class of mysterious bodies called “blue binaries”that they are intriguing pairs of brothers, doing a distant dance at the outer limits. blue binaries they are “weird” because, like other hipsters, they travel to the beat of a different drum than their neighbors. This is because blue binaries do not display the distinctive red color that characterizes the surfaces of most CCBO.
the remote control Kuiper belt It is the icy home of a dancing swarm of icy little ones. planetoids–far beyond the orbit of beautiful, blue Neptune. Tea planetoids are comet nuclei, the lingering relics of the building blocks (planetsimals) of the quartet of gas giant planets that inhabit the outer Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. In fact, this remote belt is home to more than 1,700 known objects here.
Many planetary scientists have long suggested that the frozen remains planetoids They were born in the very heart of the Kuiper belt. However, Dr. Fraser’s new study indicates something else: that the blue binaries they were actually born in a region much closer to the warmth and warmth of our Star, and were then guided by Neptune’s gravitational pulls into the distant orbits we see today. This strange migration would have occurred several billion years ago.
Dancing in the Dark
Distant, dark and cold, the icy inhabitants of the Kuiper belt they do their alien ballet in the distant suburbs of our Solar System. Here the ice dwarf planet Pluto and its quintet of moons inhabit along with a host of others of its strange and frigid kind. This remote domain is so far from Earth that astronomers are only now beginning to explore it, thanks to NASA’s historic voyage to the Pluto system. spaceship new horizonswho arrived there on July 14, 2015. new Horizons is now quickly on the way to another inhabitant of the deep freeze, and you will discover more and more still unanswered mysteries that pertain to this dimly lit domain of small frozen worlds.
So poor Pluto is just one of a large number of similar objects here in the Kuiper belt. Discovered in 1930 by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh (1906-1997), Pluto was initially ranked as the ninth major planet from our Sun. Unfortunately for little Pluto, astronomers eventually realized that Pluto is just one of many. …very much. For this reason, the International Astronomical Union (IAU)was forced to define the term “planet” and, as a result, Pluto was demoted from major planet status to dwarf planet status.
As they come screeching from the outer reaches of our Solar System, into the warm, cozy, molten heat of the inner Solar System, they make dramatic shows of themselves with glowing tails waving as they cast their eerie light across the sky. These frozen migrating alien bodies hold captive, in their icy hearts, the most pristine primordial ingredients that, long ago, were part of the construction of our Sun’s family of objects. This very ancient mixture of the purest material has been preserved in the deep freeze of the dark, distant and very cold outer regions of our Solar System. These frozen, extraterrestrial and fragile visitors from far away fly into the inner Solar System, where our Earth is located, from their mysterious and murky home beyond Neptune. Because comets contain, in their icy hearts, the well-preserved ancient elements that formed our Solar System, many astronomers believe that by identifying these ingredients, they can determine how our Sun and its family formed.
Comets are similar to riot, relic here. planetesimals which merged in the ancient Solar System to form the four outer gas giants. Alternatively, the asteroids–dwelling mainly in the handheld asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter–are similar to the rocky and metallic planetesimals They collided with each other and merged to form the quartet of small, rocky inner planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. planetesimals–both icy and rocky, they crashed into each other in the “shooting gallery” that characterized our baby Solar System. These ancient colliding objects merged to create ever larger bodies.
Many astronomers believe that the “oddball” blue binaries they migrated from their birthplace, closer to the warmth and light of our Sun, into the frigid twilight of the distant Kuiper belt. It is generally proposed that this migration occurred several billion years ago, at a time when profound changes were taking place in the orbits of the quartet of outer gas giant planets.
“The Red CCBO they are believed to have formed where they currently reside in the outer Solar System. Tea blue binarieson the other hand, they are closer interlopers in hiding in the Kuiper belt today,” study co-author Dr. Schwamb explained on April 4, 2017, Gemini Observatory press release.
Neptune: the gentle giant of our solar system
Dr. Fraser’s study suggests that when Neptune migrated from 20 AU to its current location, at 30 AU, it did so with a smooth, slow tranquility, a calm and dignified journey, as opposed to the encroaching racket of a violent bully. One AU (astronomical unit) It is equivalent to the average distance from Earth to our Sun, which is 93,000,000 miles. This gentle march of the beautiful, blue and banded ice giant planet, allowed the delicate, brittle and loose binding blue binaries to be tenderly pushed to a similar distance, where they are observed today. This calm and peaceful migration allowed the blue binaries to make its long journey, towards the outer limits, without being torn into two separate individual objects.
“This research has opened the window to new aspects of understanding the early stages of planetary growth. We now have a solid idea of how and where these develop. blue binaries originated,” explained Dr. Fraser in a statement dated April 4, 2017. Queen’s University press release.
“There has been some evidence about how Neptune moved outward at 30 AU. Our hypothesis about how these blue binaries to get to where they are requires that the Neptune migration was largely a smooth, calm motion,” he added.
Dr. Schwamb also explained in the Queen’s University Press Release that “This novel program uses two world-class telescopes: the Gemini North and Canada-France-Hawaii telescopes simultaneously. By doing so, we are able to collect comprehensive spectral information spanning the ultraviolet, optical, and near-infrared wavelength ranges. Without this program and the partners involved, this important research breakthrough would not have been possible.”
“Working closely together, Gemini North and the Canada-France-Hawaii telescopes coordinated their movements to observe the Col-OSSOS Kuiper Belt Objects almost at the same time,” added Dr. Schwamb.
The simultaneous observations of mauna kea allowed the team of astronomers to measure the light emanating from the same side of the Kuiper belt object. This removed one of the most perplexing difficulties in the study of spinning Solar System bodies.
Dr Todd Burdullis, QSO operations specialist in CFHTwho helped coordinate the observations, commented on April 4, 2017 Queen’s University Press Release that “Facilitating simultaneous observations with the Col-OSSOS equipment and Gemini Observatory was challenging, but it paved the way for a greater understanding of the origins of these blue binaries. Together, the two facilities observed all the colors of the outer Solar System for the Col-OSSOS equipment.