Tracking icy objects, across the globe
On any given night, numerous icy bodies orbiting the sun far beyond the orbit of Pluto may happen to pass in front of a star (as seen from Earth). These events are called occultations, but because the icy moon-sized globes called Kuiper Belt Objects are so small, and their orbits not very accurately known, the vast majority of these events will go unobserved. That's too bad, because there's a lot to be learned by watching occultations: It's a way to learn the exact size of the object, to discover whether it's actually a pair of objects or is accompanied by one or more moons, and whether or not it has an atmosphere. These questions bear directly on our understanding of the origins of our solar system, because Kuiper Belt Object — in a belt of tens of thousands of icy worlds that includes the former planet Pluto —...
Read the whole article on MIT Research
More from MIT Research
Related
- Primitive asteroids in the main asteroid belt may have formed far from the sunWed, 15 Jul 2009, 13:38:16 EDT
- Radio telescope images reveal planet-forming disk orbiting twin sunsWed, 10 Jun 2009, 15:36:37 EDT
- Plutoid chosen as name for solar system objects like PlutoWed, 11 Jun 2008, 10:35:45 EDT
- Rare cases of restored vision reveal how the brain learns to seeThu, 17 Sep 2009, 11:47:51 EDT
- How to deflect asteroids and save the EarthThu, 16 Apr 2009, 12:50:44 EDT