Arrokoth and the many mysteries of the primordial sky
There is a distant, dark domain of eternal twilight at the outer limits of our Solar System, where our Sun can shine softly with only a faint, faint fire. This distant region is called Kuiper Belt, and is home to the dwarf planet Pluto, its large icy moon, Charon, and a host of other frozen objects including a dancing sea of icy comet nuclei. The fragile, ephemeral comets heading inland toward the bright light and melting heat of our Star are the refugees fleeing this remote region of perpetual twilight. In February 2020, NASA planetary scientists New Horizons mission to Pluto, and beyond, announced that the data collected from this mission is providing new insights into how the planets and planetesimals– the building blocks of the planets – were born in our primordial solar system. Tea New Horizons The spaceship flew past the old one. Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) Arrokoth (2014 MU 69) on January 1, 2019, giving humanity its first close-up view of one of those mysterious icy relics from the birth of our Solar System nearly five billion years ago.
Using detailed data on Arrokoth’s shape, geology, color and composition, collected during an unprecedented flyby that took place more than 4,000,000,000 miles from Earth, planetary scientists announced in February 2020 that they have been able to answer a long-standing question about planetesimal origins and thus have made a breakthrough in our understanding of how planets were born. The team reports those findings in a set of three articles published in the February 13, 2020 issue of the journal. Sciences. The scientists also presented their findings at a press conference held at the annual meeting. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Seattle, Washington.
486958 Arrokoth is the provisional name of 2014 MU 69, to trans-Neptunian object. It’s a binary contact, 22 miles long, made up of a duo of frigid primordial planetesimals which are 13 miles and 9 miles wide. Both planetesimals they have been nicknamed Last Y Thule, respectively, and are united along their main axes. Last is flatter than Thule, and it’s actually an aggregate of 8 or more smaller objects, each about 3 miles wide. These smaller objects are believed to have merged earlier Last Y Thule came together and merged. Because apparently there have been no, or very few, catastrophic impacts on Arrokoth since it formed, the history of its formation has been preserved in the deep freeze of our Solar System, away from the molten heat of our turbulent Star.
Arrokoth it is the most distant and primitive object in our Solar System visited by a spacecraft. It was discovered on June 26, 2014 by Dr. Marc Bule and the New Horizons Search team using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) as part of a search for the KBO that would become the goal of New Horizons on his first extended mission. This discovery required the use of the HST because, with an apparent magnitude of only 26, Arrokoth it is too faint to be observed, except by the most powerful telescopes. Tea HST it also has the ability to perform extremely accurate astrometry. This means that it can provide a reliable determination of an orbit.
Arrokoth was chosen over two other candidates KBO, and thus became the fate of New Horizons’ mission extended beyond Pluto. With an orbital period of about 298 years and a low orbital inclination and eccentricity, Arrokoth a cold classic is designated KBO.
The provisional name Arrokoth itself comes from the Powhatan region of Virginia and Maryland, where Arrokoth’s the discovery occurred. Tea HST Y Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory Both operate in Maryland and are primarily responsible for Arrokoth’s 2014 discovery.
Pluto and beyond
On July 14, 2015, after his dangerous decade-long odyssey through space, New Horizons reached its main goal in the Kuiper Belt–tea ice dwarf planet Pluto and its family of five icy moons, including its large moon, Charon, which is almost half the size of Pluto. New HorizonsAfter successfully making its historic closest approach to the Pluto system, it sent some revealing images of this distant little world back to Earth with a big heart.
For most of the 20th century, astronomers viewed Pluto as a lonely little world, where it inhabits the outer domain of our Solar System. However, this point of view changed in 1992, when a second KBO was discovered in this region. Because of this discovery, planetary scientists realized that Pluto is not alone in this remote icy region of perpetual twilight. In fact, Pluto orbits our star in the company of a myriad of others of its mysterious icy species. Since 1992, astronomers searching for these distant bodies have discovered a multitude of other small rocky and icy worlds, very similar to Pluto. Some of the other distant inhabitants of our Solar System’s deep freeze also orbit our Star in eccentric orbits, just like Pluto. Tea dwarf planet Eris is one of the most important of these scattered disk objects. Discovered in 2005, Eris It is slightly more massive than Pluto, and its discovery is what forced planetary scientists to realize that Pluto is simply one of many. As a result, at that time, poor little Pluto was unceremoniously evicted from the pantheon of major planets, and is now classified as a ice dwarf–a mother dwarf planet, goal has planet However. Before that, Pluto was classified as the ninth major planet from our star.
KBO In general, they are believed to be made primarily of a combination of ice and rock. Tea Kuiper Belt extends from the orbit of Neptune to about 50 astronomical units (AU). One TO it is equal to the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun, which is approximately 93,000,000 miles. The average distance from Neptune to our star is approximately 30.1 TO–its perhihelion (when it is closest to our star) is 29.8 TO, while his aphelion (when it is farthest from our star) is 30.4 TO.
After completing his main mission of a flyby over Pluto and its moons, the New Horizon The spacecraft was maneuvered for its future flight over the distant Arrokoth.
Arrokoth and its many mysteries
ArrokothAs the most remote, primitive and purest object ever explored by a spaceship, it has a unique story to tell us. This small remote object has allowed planetary scientists to make important advances in their understanding of how planets formed in the primordial Solar System. The first images after the flyby obtained from New Horizons in 2019 revealed that Arrokoth it actually consists of two interconnected blades with smooth surfaces, as well as the same composition. This indicates that it is most likely a pristine object and as such provides valuable information on how it was formed.
These exciting new finds contribute to the many historic accomplishments of an important mission. NASA discoveries obtained from New Horizons We have improved our knowledge and understanding of how planetary bodies were born in our Solar System, as well as in remote planetary systems beyond our own.
In the future, the New Horizons The team plans to use higher resolution data. The scientists also plan to use sophisticated supercomputer simulations to create models of how Arrokoth it may have formed billions of years ago.
Your analysis has already revealed that Arrokoth’s The “binary contact” lobes were originally two separate objects, orbiting close to each other at slow speeds. Eventually the duo collided gently and fused to form the 22mm body observed by New Horizons.
This information indicates that Arrokoth was born during the gravitational collapse of solid particle clouds in the original primordial solar nebula that gave birth to our Sun and its family of planets, moons and other objects, about 4.56 billion years ago. In dramatic contrast to a high-speed collision and hierarchical accumulation, the particles that created Arrokoth they merged smoothly as the cloud collapsed. This indicates that Arrokoth, and other similar objects that inhabited the ancient Solar System, gradually increased in size to form larger and larger bodies. In a way that has been compared to how fossils show the way species evolved on our own planet, persisting planetesimals What Arrokoth reveal how the planets evolved in our own Solar System and beyond.
Arrokoth It would not have the appearance that it does if it had formed as a result of a violent collision in our primordial Solar System. Instead, the evidence indicates that it was formed as a result of a more complex and smooth ballet in which the two dancing planetesimals they slowly orbited each other before their dance gravitationally pulled them both together, thus forming the two unique lobes planetesimal observed today.
Two other important lines of evidence support this scenario. The uniform composition of the surface and the color of Arrokoth reveal that it was formed from materials that dance closely with each other, as predicted by local collapse patterns within the clouds. This is in contrast to a model that indicates that it was formed from material located in regions further apart from the primordial region. solar nebula.
Furthermore, the flattened shape of each of Arrokoth’s two lobes, as well as its very narrow polar alignment and equator, indicate that it was born in an orderly cradle. Also, Arrokoth’s The smooth surface suggests that his face has been well preserved in the dark and deep freeze of our Solar System since the end of the age of planet formation. This means that Arrokoth shows physical properties that indicate that it was formed as a result of the gradual and smooth fusion of objects that formed close to each other in the solar nebula.
The three articles published in the February 13, 2020 issue of the magazine Sciences they are based on ten times more data than the first published reports on the new findings. Together, the articles provide a more complete description of Arrokoth’s mysterious origins.
New Horizons continue to observe objects dancing in the distance Kuiper belt. In the summer of 2020, the New Horizons The team plans to use a large telescope on Earth to search for more KBO that can be studied, and also look for other potential targets for the spacecraft.
At the time of this writing, the New Horizons The spacecraft is 7.1 billion kilometers from Earth. It still operates normally, as it soars through this unexplored and icy twilight region at speeds of nearly 50,400 kilometers per hour.
New Horizons Principal Investigator Dr. Alan Stern explained his reasons for giving Arrokoth your name:
“Name ‘Arrokoth’ reflects the inspiration to look up to the sky and wonder about the stars and worlds beyond our own. That desire to learn is at the heart of the New Horizons’ mission, and we are honored to join the Powhatan community and the people of Maryland in this celebration of discovery. “