Plutino
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Plutinos form the inner part of the Kuiper belt. About 1/4 of known Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) are Plutinos.
Some of the largest plutinos:
Also considered to be similar to the plutinos are:- Pluto itself, but see paragraph below.
- Charon, the largest of the 3 moons of Pluto
- Nix, the middle moon of the 3 moons of Pluto
- Hydra, the farthest of the 3 moons of Pluto
1The name of Plutino, if interpreted as a small Pluto is misleading. Instead, the name of Plutino simply characterises the orbit in 2:3 resonance. Pluto and its moons are consequently considered as Plutinos.
Orbits
Origin
It is believed that Pluto and a number of objects with similar semi-axes following originally non-resonant orbits have been captured by Neptune migrating outward.Preprint in arXiv]Current distribution
The diagram illustrates the orbits and relative sizes1 of larger plutinos compared with the big three: Pluto, 90482 Orcus and 28978 Ixion marked by white circles. Pluto’s largest moon Charon is not shown to limit the cluttering of the diagram (diameter of 1207km, similar to that of Orcus).
The eccentricity of the orbits is represented by red segments (extending from perihelion to aphelion) and the inclination represented on Y axis. While majority of objects have low orbital inclination, a substantial number of them follow orbits similar to that of Pluto with inclination in 10-25o range and eccentricities around 0.2-0.25, resulting in object's perihelion inside (or close to) the orbit of Neptune and aphelion close to the main Kuiper belt's outer edge (1:2 resonance). In addition to large objects, to illustrate the range of orbits’ parameters, three objects with extreme orbits are plotted (in yellow):
- 2005 EK298 following the most highly inclined orbit (40o)
- 2003 QV91 with the most elliptical orbit (eccentricity=0.35), with the perihelion halfway between Uranus and Neptune and the aphelion well into the scattered disk region.
- 2002 KX14 on a quasi-circular (eccentricity=0.04) orbit, lying almost perfectly on the ecliptic (inclination<0.5o)
See also the comparison with the distribution of the classical objects.
1For a few large objects with the diameters known with some precision, the current estimates are shown. For all others, the size of the object plotted is proportional to their absolute magnitude, assuming the albedo.
Long-term stability
The gravitational influence of Pluto is usually neglected given its small mass. However, the resonance width (the range of semi-axes compatible with the resonance) is very narrow and only a few times larger than Pluto’s Hill sphere (gravitational influence). Consequently, depending on the original eccentricity, some Plutinos will be driven out of the resonance by interactions with Pluto. Numerical simulations suggest that Plutinos with the eccentricity 10%-30% smaller or bigger than that of Pluto are not stable in Gy timescales.Preprint in arXiv]External links
- [David Jewitt (Univ. of Hawaii) on Plutinos]
- [Minor Planet Center, List of NTOs]
- [MPC List of Distant Minor Planets]
References
- D.Jewitt, A.Delsanti The Solar System Beyond The Planets in Solar System Update : Topical and Timely Reviews in Solar System Sciences , Springer-Praxis Ed., ISBN: 3540260560 (2006). [Preprint of the article (pdf)]
- Bernstein G.M., Trilling D.E., Allen R.L. , Brown K.E , Holman M., Malhotra R. The size Distribution of transneptunian bodies. The Astronomical Journal, 128, 1364-1390. [preprint on arXiv (pdf)]
- Minor Planet Circular 2005-X77 [Distant Minor planets] was used for plutinos' orbits classification. The updated data can be found in [MPC 2006-D28].
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| Trans Neptunian Objects [[http://encycl.opentopia.com/ edit ]] |
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| Planet : Pluto | 2003 UB313 Plutino : Pluto* | 1993 RO | 1993 RP | | 1993 SC | 1994 TB | 1995 QZ9 | 1996 SZ4 | 1996 TP66 | 38083 Rhadamanthus | 38628 Huya | 28978 Ixion | 2003 VS2 | 90482 Orcus Cubewanos: 1992 QB1 | 1994 GV9 | 1994 JQ1 | 1994 VK8 | 1996 TO66 | 19521 Chaos | 53311 Deucalion | 2002 AW197 | 50000 Quaoar | 2002 MS4 | 2002 TX300 | 2002 UX25 | 1997 CQ29 = 58534 Logos | 2003 AZ84 | 2003 EL61 | 2003 QW90 | 2005 FY9 Twotino: 1996 TR66 | 1998 SM165 | 1997 SZ10 | 1999 RB216 | 2000 JG81 Scattered disk object: 1995 TL8 | 1996 GQ21 | 1996 TL66 | 2000 OO67 | 2000 OM67 | 2001 KC77 | 2001 UR163 | 2002 CY224 | 2002 GX32 | 2003 UB313** Unclassified Objects : 1994 JS | 1994 JR1 | 1995 DA2 | 1995 SM55 | 1996 TQ66 | 1997 CR29 | 1997 CS29 | 1997 CU29 | 1997 QJ4 | 1998 HJ151 | 1998 HK151 | 1998 HP151 | 1998 HM151 | 1998 KR65 | 1998 SM165 | 1998 SN1651998 US43 | 1998 VG44 | 1998 WW24 | 1998 WA31 | 1998 WU31 | 1998 WW31 | 1998 WA25 | 1999 CP133 | 1999 CL158 | 1999 CC158 | 1999 DF9 | 1999 HT11 | 1999 HB12 | 1999 HC12 | 1999 KR16 | 1999 OY3 Natural satellites : Charon (Pluto) | Hydra (Pluto) | Nix (Pluto) | S/2000 (1998 WW31) 1 | S/2005 (2003 EL61) 1 | S/2005 (2003 EL61) 2 | S/2005 (2003 UB313) 1 |}
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