Finding out about Makemake's properties for the first time is a big step forward in our study of the select club
of icy dwarf planets.»
Not exact matches
A recently discovered solitary ice volcano on the
dwarf planet Ceres may have some hidden older siblings, say scientists who have tested a likely way such mountains
of icy rock — called cryovolcanoes — might disappear over millions
of years.
Such worlds may include Mars, the asteroid Vesta, the
dwarf planet Ceres or the
icy moons
of Jupiter or Saturn.
The results also suggest the presence
of unseen, surviving
planets which may have perturbed the belt and worked as a «bucket brigade» to draw the
icy objects into the white
dwarf.
An international team
of astronomers including researchers from the University
of British Columbia has discovered a new
dwarf planet orbiting in the disk
of small
icy worlds beyond Neptune.
Images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft show that a mysterious bright spot on
dwarf planet Ceres could be a plume
of water spurting from a deep,
icy crater
Dwarf planets like Pluto and smaller
icy bodies populate the Kuiper Belt beyond the orbit
of Neptune.
One
of our solar system's five
dwarf planets, Makemake — an
icy, 1400 - kilometer - wide orb that circles the sun far beyond Pluto — was discovered in 2005.
Data gathered when the
dwarf planet Makemake passed in front
of a distant star last year are shedding new light on the
icy orb's size, shape, and atmosphere — or, more precisely, its lack
of one.
New Horizons» flyby
of the
dwarf planet and its five known moons is providing an up - close introduction to the solar system's Kuiper Belt, an outer region populated by
icy objects ranging in size from boulders to
dwarf planets.
If the early results hold up, this time it's the
dwarf planet Eris's turn to be demoted, and Pluto might have just regained its status as the largest object in the Kuiper Belt, the ring
of icy bodies beyond Neptune.
The pictures, taken when New Horizons was about 13 million kilometers from the
dwarf planet, show three different swaths
of the
icy surface as Pluto slowly rotated on its axis.
From the discovery
of moons around these
icy bodies, the internal composition, mass, density, and internal structure
of these
dwarf planets has been revealed.
This large debris disk is similar to the Kuiper Belt, which encircles the solar system and contains a range
of icy bodies from dust grains to objects the size
of dwarf planets, such as Pluto.
The discovery team presumes that VP113 has an
icy reflective surface like other relatively small, outer Solar System objects, as the
dwarf planet is observed to have a pink tinge, which is hypothesized to result from chemical changes produced by the effect
of radiation on frozen water, methane, and carbon dioxide.
Including Eris, Pluto, and now Make - make (2005 FY9), the largest
dwarf planets include many recently discovered
icy objects that orbit the Sun beyond the orbit
of Neptune (more).
Artwork
of two
icy dwarf planets orbiting within the Kuiper Belt
of the outer solar system.
The outcomes also suggest the existence
of hidden
planets which may have affected the belt and acted as a «bucket brigade» to attract the
icy bodies into the white
dwarf.