The Largest Kuiper Belt Object Isn't Pluto Or Eris, But Triton 61
StartsWithABang writes: Out beyond Neptune, the last of our Solar System's gas giants, the icy graveyard of failed planetesimals lurks: the Kuiper Belt. Among these mixes of ice, snow, dust and rock are a number of worlds — possibly a few hundred — massive enough to pull themselves into hydrostatic equilibrium. The most famous among them are Pluto, the first one ever discovered, and Eris, of comparable size but undoubtedly more massive. But there's an even larger, more massive object from the Kuiper Belt than either of these, yet you never hear about it: it's Triton, the largest moon of Neptune, a true Kuiper Belt object!
AHRGhhh! (Score:1, Funny)
JUST LEAVE PLUTO ALONE!11
Does the rock run Linux? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Does the rock run Linux? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, its name is mythological in origin (like most bodies in our solar system):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... [wikipedia.org]
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I personally think "weywot" is an abbreviated version of "wait... what?" - the astronomers exclamation upon discovering the object. It's currently my favorite Kuyper belt object name :)
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Eris and its moon were provisionally Zena and Gabrielle for working names. Sometimes I wish the IAU wasn't so formal. I'm also old enough to remember 70's era suggestions that if successors to Pluto were found, they should be Mickey, Goofy, Donald, and so on. I understand people feeling this is serious, formal, black tie dinner stuff and wanting to keep the humor out, but I keep thinking of how The Culture's starships feel about accusations they need to cultivate more gravitas.
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If it runs Windows OTOH it is probably surrounded by normal people.
As a vulnerability remediation technician, I get paid for consoling hurt computers and fixing broken users. Great job security because the work never ends. Thanks, Microsoft!
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Of course we've heard about it (Score:5, Interesting)
I hear about it. I remember hearing a while ago that Triton was theorized to be a captured Kuiper belt object. It's one of the "big moons", and it has ice volcanoes. How cool is that?
Sure, we don't hear about it a lot, because it's so far out, so there isn't a high rate of discovery like planets that have been probed.
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Meant to include a link: http://nineplanets.org/triton.html [nineplanets.org]
No it isn't (Score:5, Funny)
Triton was a Kuiper belt object. Now it's not.
How long must the discrimination go on? Surely a billion years is enough to qualify for Neptunian citizenship?
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As the EU has less money than italy, it has given Triton the mission to drag illegal immigrants out of mediterranean using its gravity.
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The guy who writes these articles gets excited! Really excited! And he wants to show us all how excited! With exclamation points!
Name should be "Endswithabang!"
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Triton's birth certificate is fake!
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I don't give a fuck and I don't think it should fucking matter. Stupid rule.
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That won't work. While it might not be Kuiper belt, Triton is still a trans-neptunian object half the time.
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Triton was a Kuiper belt object. Now it's not.
How long must the discrimination go on? Surely a billion years is enough to qualify for Neptunian citizenship?
The problem is Neptune is in the Kuiper belt, but it is a real planet, a colonist if you like, orbitted by a native.
Re:Clockwise Question. (Score:4, Interesting)
Triton's orbit is not stable. Its orbit is decaying and it will eventually be ripped apart by tidal forces as it approaches Neptune. This may result in a extensive ring system similar to Saturn's.
Re:Clockwise Question. (Score:4, Informative)
It's the other way around, the retrograde (which is only "counterclockwise" when viewed from one side) motion causes tidal drag which causes the orbit to decay.
Tidal forces produce bulges on large objects, and the resulting non-spherical shape allows gravity to apply torque to objects and transfer angular momentum between their rotation and their orbital revolution. This tends to bring rotation and orbital revolution into sync: it locked the moon's rotation to its orbit around the Earth, and the reverse process transferred angular momentum from Earth's rotation to the moon's orbit, slowing the Earth's rotation and pulling the moon to a higher orbit. Triton happened to be captured on the "wrong" side of Neptune and end up in a retrograde orbit, so the same tidal drag is pulling it into a lower orbit.
Phobos is in a similar situation despite having a prograde orbit: it's low enough that it orbits faster than Mars rotates (appearing from the surface to cross the sky in the opposite direction as Deimos), so the tidal drag that is pulling the more distant and slower-orbiting Deimos into an even higher orbit is pulling Phobos into a lower one.
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Phobos is in a similar situation despite having a prograde orbit: it's low enough that it orbits faster than Mars rotates (appearing from the surface to cross the sky in the opposite direction as Deimos), so the tidal drag that is pulling the more distant and slower-orbiting Deimos into an even higher orbit is pulling Phobos into a lower one.
In other words, Phobos orbits below the level of an areosynchronous orbit and outruns its own tidal bulge, which means this tidal bulge pulls back on it. (I just wanted an excuse to use the word "areosynchronous".)
no? (Score:1)
you give the Devil an inch (Score:1)
wow, these Big Kuiper Belt bosses just do whatever they please
at this rate, I predict half the planets and several Middle Eastern nations will be designated KBOs by the year 2025
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As a newly-appointed Kuiper Belt Object, I am offended by that!
slightly off topic... (Score:2)
Is it like "cooper?"
Or is it like "kiper" - rhymes with hyper?
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How do you pronounce "Kuiper?"
Is it like "cooper?"
Or is it like "kiper" - rhymes with hyper?
None of the above.
Take the 'eh' sound in the very beginning of 'earth', keep it completely flat and put it at the + marks in k+p+r, the first for 100ms and the second for 20ms.
You won't be too far off, though your final 'r' will still give you away.
Reminds me of... (Score:2)
Lime and limpid green, a second scene
A fight between the blue you once knew.
Floating down, the sound resounds
Around the icy waters underground.
Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda
And Titania, Neptune, Titan.
Stars can frighten.
Blinding signs flap,
Flicker, flicker, flicker blam. Pow, pow.
Stairway scare Dan Dare who's there?
Lime and limpid green
The sounds surrounds the icy waters underground
Lime and limpid green
The sounds surrounds the icy waters underground.