Sentences with phrase «icy debris»
The phrase "icy debris" refers to pieces of ice that are scattered or broken off from something larger. Full definition
Orbiting within the Kuiper Belt, a vast cloud of icy debris left over from the solar system's formation, the oddball is estimated to be 600 kilometers long but just 360 kilometers wide, making it one of the largest elongated bodies ever detected.
sciencemag.org
Astronomers believe this region, called the Oort cloud, contains a vast collection of icy debris left over from material that came together to form the sun, Earth, and the other major planets 4.6 billion years ago.
STIS detected the giant structures as far away as 37 billion miles (60 million kilometers) away from V Hydrae, more than eight times farther away than the Kuiper Belt of icy debris at the edge of our solar system is from the sun.
Levison reached this conclusion after puzzling over the number of objects in the Oort cloud, the spherical collection of frozen comets and other icy debris that surrounds our solar system.
Fomalhaut's mystery planet (inset) is bound to enter the inner edge of the star's outer belt of icy debris in 2032.
They originated in the Kuiper belt, the ring of icy debris beyond Neptune where Pluto lives.
STIS detected the giant structures as far away as 37 billion miles away from V Hydrae, more than eight times farther away than the Kuiper Belt of icy debris at the edge of our solar system is from the sun.
Mission scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have finally identified three possible destinations within the Kuiper belt, the ring of icy debris that lies beyond the orbit of Neptune.
A simulated low - speed crash between comparably sized planetoids yields a Pluto and a Charon, plus an icy debris disk that could coalesce into a Nix and a Hydra.
A giant planet lurking at the outskirts of the solar system could explain the odd orbits of far - flung hunks of icy debris (SN: 2/20/16, p. 6).
«That's kind of one of the nice and bad things about comets; most of the really bright ones are first timers that come in out of the Oort Cloud» — a giant cloud of icy debris that surrounds the solar system — «and you can't predict those, they just show up,» he says.
To explain why the gas is clumped, previous researchers suggested the clumps could be evidence of icy debris being corralled by a second as - yet - unseen planet, resulting in an unusually high number of collisions that produce carbon monoxide.
This past July researchers examining data from Cassini's mass spectrometer announced that the icy debris contains ammonia, a potent antifreeze that could keep water in a liquid state even at the deep - freeze temperatures -LRB--- 136 degrees Fahrenheit) measured near the vents.
2003 EL61 looks like a deflated football hurtling end over end through space, dragging along two moons and a tail of icy debris.
Astronomers will continue monitoring Fomalhaut b for decades to come because they may have a chance to observe a planet entering an icy debris belt that is like the Kuiper Belt at the fringe of our own solar system.