1.
Kitt Peak National Observatory
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With 24 optical and two radio telescopes, it is the largest, most diverse gathering of astronomical instruments in the world. The observatory is administered by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Kitt Peak was selected by its first director, Aden B. Meinel, in 1958 as the site for an observatory under contract with the National Science Foundation and was administered by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy. The land was leased from the Tohono Oodham under a perpetual agreement, the second director was Nicholas U. The observatory sites are under lease from the Tohono Oodham Nation at the amount of a dollar per acre yearly. The principal instruments at KPNO are the Mayall 4 metre telescope, the WIYN3.5 metre telescope, and further 2.1 m,1.3 m,0.9 m, and 0.4 m reflecting telescopes. The McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope on the facilities is the largest solar telescope in the world, the ARO 12m Radio Telescope is also in the location. Kitt Peak is famous for hosting the first telescope used to search for near-Earth asteroids, additionally, there is the Advanced Observing Program for advanced amateur astronomers. This program allows for a one-on-one, full-night tour using any of the visitors center’s telescopes, guests may choose to do DSLR imaging, CCD imaging, or simply take in the sights with their eye to the telescope. Kitt Peaks Southeastern Association for Research and Astronomy Telescope was featured in the WIPB-PBS documentary, the project followed SARA astronomers from Ball State University to the observatory and featured time-lapse images from various points around Kitt Peak. Due to its elevation, the observatory experiences a much cooler and wetter climate throughout the year than most of the Sonoran desert
2.
Minor planet
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A minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is neither a planet nor exclusively classified as a comet. Minor planets can be dwarf planets, asteroids, trojans, centaurs, Kuiper belt objects, as of 2016, the orbits of 709,706 minor planets were archived at the Minor Planet Center,469,275 of which had received permanent numbers. The first minor planet to be discovered was Ceres in 1801, the term minor planet has been used since the 19th century to describe these objects. The term planetoid has also used, especially for larger objects such as those the International Astronomical Union has called dwarf planets since 2006. Historically, the asteroid, minor planet, and planetoid have been more or less synonymous. This terminology has become complicated by the discovery of numerous minor planets beyond the orbit of Jupiter. A Minor planet seen releasing gas may be classified as a comet. Before 2006, the IAU had officially used the term minor planet, during its 2006 meeting, the IAU reclassified minor planets and comets into dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. Objects are called dwarf planets if their self-gravity is sufficient to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium, all other minor planets and comets are called small Solar System bodies. The IAU stated that the minor planet may still be used. However, for purposes of numbering and naming, the distinction between minor planet and comet is still used. Hundreds of thousands of planets have been discovered within the Solar System. The Minor Planet Center has documented over 167 million observations and 729,626 minor planets, of these,20,570 have official names. As of March 2017, the lowest-numbered unnamed minor planet is 1974 FV1, as of March 2017, the highest-numbered named minor planet is 458063 Gustavomuler. There are various broad minor-planet populations, Asteroids, traditionally, most have been bodies in the inner Solar System. Near-Earth asteroids, those whose orbits take them inside the orbit of Mars. Further subclassification of these, based on distance, is used, Apohele asteroids orbit inside of Earths perihelion distance. Aten asteroids, those that have semi-major axes of less than Earths, Apollo asteroids are those asteroids with a semimajor axis greater than Earths, while having a perihelion distance of 1.017 AU or less. Like Aten asteroids, Apollo asteroids are Earth-crossers, amor asteroids are those near-Earth asteroids that approach the orbit of Earth from beyond, but do not cross it
3.
Near-Earth object
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A near-Earth object is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By definition, a solar system body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun is less than 1.3 astronomical unit and it is now widely accepted that collisions in the past have had a significant role in shaping the geological and biological history of the Earth. NEOs have become of increased interest since the 1980s because of increased awareness of the potential danger some of the asteroids or comets pose, and mitigations are being researched. In January 2016, NASA announced the Planetary Defense Coordination Office to track NEOs larger than 30 to 50 meters in diameter and coordinate an effective threat response, NEAs have orbits that lie partly between 0.983 and 1.3 AU away from the Sun. When a NEA is detected it is submitted to the IAUs Minor Planet Center for cataloging, some NEAs orbits intersect that of Earths so they pose a collision danger. The United States, European Union, and other nations are currently scanning for NEOs in an effort called Spaceguard. In the United States and since 1998, NASA has a mandate to catalogue all NEOs that are at least 1 kilometer wide. In 2006, it was estimated that 20% of the objects had not yet been found. In 2011, largely as a result of NEOWISE, it was estimated that 93% of the NEAs larger than 1 km had been found, as of 5 February 2017, there have been 875 NEAs larger than 1 km discovered, of which 157 are potentially hazardous. The inventory is much less complete for smaller objects, which still have potential for scale, though not global. Potentially hazardous objects are defined based on parameters that measure the objects potential to make threatening close approaches to the Earth. Mostly objects with an Earth minimum orbit intersection distance of 0.05 AU or less, objects that cannot approach closer to the Earth than 0.05 AU, or are smaller than about 150 m in diameter, are not considered PHOs. This makes them a target for exploration. As of 2016, three near-Earth objects have been visited by spacecraft, more recently, a typical frame of reference for looking at NEOs has been through the scientific concept of risk. In this frame, the risk that any near-Earth object poses is typically seen through a lens that is a function of both the culture and the technology of human society, NEOs have been understood differently throughout history. Each time an NEO is observed, a different risk was posed and it is not just a matter of scientific knowledge. Such perception of risk is thus a product of religious belief, philosophic principles, scientific understanding, technological capabilities, and even economical resourcefulness.03 E −0.4 megatonnes. For instance, it gives the rate for bolides of 10 megatonnes or more as 1 per thousand years, however, the authors give a rather large uncertainty, due in part to uncertainties in determining the energies of the atmospheric impacts that they used in their determination
4.
Potentially hazardous object
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A potentially hazardous object can be known not to be a threat to Earth for the next 100 years or more, if its orbit is reasonably well determined. Potentially hazardous asteroids with some threat of impacting Earth in the next 100 years are listed on the Sentry Risk Table, as of March 2017 there are 1,786 known potentially hazardous asteroids and only 205 have an observation arc shorter than 30 days. Of the known PHAs,157 are believed to be larger than one kilometer in diameter, a calculated diameter is only a rough estimate, as it is inferred from the objects varying brightness—observed and measured at various times—and the assumed, yet unknown reflectivity of its surface. Most of the discovered PHAs are Apollo asteroids and fewer belong to the group of Aten asteroids, after several astronomical surveys, the number of known PHAs has increased tenfold since the end of the 1990s. These surveys have led to a number of 15,802 discovered near-Earth objects. Most of them are asteroids, with just some 106 near-Earth comets, the Minor Planet Centers website Unusual Minor Planets also publishes detailed statistics for these objects. This is big enough to cause devastation to human settlements unprecedented in human history in the case of a land impact. Such impact events occur on average once per 10,000 years. NEOWISE data estimates that there are 4,700 ±1,500 potentially hazardous asteroids with a greater than 100 meters. As of 2012, an estimated 20 to 30 percent of these objects have been found, Asteroids larger than 35 meters across can pose a threat to a town or city. The diameter of most small asteroids is not well determined and can only be estimated based on their brightness, for this reason NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory use the more practical measure of absolute magnitude. Any asteroid with a magnitude of 22. The NASA near-Earth object program uses an assumed albedo of 0.13 for this purpose, in May 2016, the asteroid size estimates arising from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer and NEOWISE missions have been questioned, but the criticism has yet to undergo peer review. Several astronomical survey projects such as Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research and Catalina Sky Survey continue to search for more PHOs, both professional and amateur astronomers participate in such monitoring. This is a reflection of the character of the Solar System. The two main scales used to categorize the impact hazards of asteroids are the Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale, the lowest numbered PHA is 1566 Icarus. The largest known Potentially hazardous asteroid is 1999 JM8 with a diameter of ~7 km, below is listed the largest PHA discovered in a given year. Historical data of the number of discovered PHA since 1999 are displayed in the bar charts—one for the total number
5.
Apollo asteroid
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The Apollo asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after 1862 Apollo, discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s. They are Earth crossing asteroids that have an orbital semi-major axis greater than that of the Earth, as of November 2016, the steadily growing number of known Apollo asteroids has reached a total of 8,180 members. It is by far the largest group of objects, compared to the Aten, Amor. Currently, there are 1,133 numbered Apollos, asteroids are not numbered until they have been observed at two or more oppositions. There are also 1,472 Apollo asteroids that are enough. The closer their semi-major axis is to Earths, the eccentricity is needed for the orbits to cross. The largest known Apollo asteroid is 1866 Sisyphus, with a diameter of about 8.5 km, examples of known Apollo asteroids include, Apollo asteroids Apollo asteroid records List of Apollo minor planets
6.
Perihelion and aphelion
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The perihelion is the point in the orbit of a celestial body where it is nearest to its orbital focus, generally a star. It is the opposite of aphelion, which is the point in the orbit where the body is farthest from its focus. The word perihelion stems from the Ancient Greek words peri, meaning around or surrounding, aphelion derives from the preposition apo, meaning away, off, apart. According to Keplers first law of motion, all planets, comets. Hence, a body has a closest and a farthest point from its parent object, that is, a perihelion. Each extreme is known as an apsis, orbital eccentricity measures the flatness of the orbit. Because of the distance at aphelion, only 93. 55% of the solar radiation from the Sun falls on a given area of land as does at perihelion. However, this fluctuation does not account for the seasons, as it is summer in the northern hemisphere when it is winter in the southern hemisphere and vice versa. Instead, seasons result from the tilt of Earths axis, which is 23.4 degrees away from perpendicular to the plane of Earths orbit around the sun. Winter falls on the hemisphere where sunlight strikes least directly, and summer falls where sunlight strikes most directly, in the northern hemisphere, summer occurs at the same time as aphelion. Despite this, there are larger land masses in the northern hemisphere, consequently, summers are 2.3 °C warmer in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere under similar conditions. Apsis Ellipse Solstice Dates and times of Earths perihelion and aphelion, 2000–2025 from the United States Naval Observatory
7.
Astronomical unit
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The astronomical unit is a unit of length, roughly the distance from Earth to the Sun. However, that varies as Earth orbits the Sun, from a maximum to a minimum. Originally conceived as the average of Earths aphelion and perihelion, it is now defined as exactly 149597870700 metres, the astronomical unit is used primarily as a convenient yardstick for measuring distances within the Solar System or around other stars. However, it is also a component in the definition of another unit of astronomical length. A variety of symbols and abbreviations have been in use for the astronomical unit. In a 1976 resolution, the International Astronomical Union used the symbol A for the astronomical unit, in 2006, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures recommended ua as the symbol for the unit. In 2012, the IAU, noting that various symbols are presently in use for the astronomical unit, in the 2014 revision of the SI Brochure, the BIPM used the unit symbol au. In ISO 80000-3, the symbol of the unit is ua. Earths orbit around the Sun is an ellipse, the semi-major axis of this ellipse is defined to be half of the straight line segment that joins the aphelion and perihelion. The centre of the sun lies on this line segment. In addition, it mapped out exactly the largest straight-line distance that Earth traverses over the course of a year, knowing Earths shift and a stars shift enabled the stars distance to be calculated. But all measurements are subject to some degree of error or uncertainty, improvements in precision have always been a key to improving astronomical understanding. Improving measurements were continually checked and cross-checked by means of our understanding of the laws of celestial mechanics, the expected positions and distances of objects at an established time are calculated from these laws, and assembled into a collection of data called an ephemeris. NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory provides one of several ephemeris computation services, in 1976, in order to establish a yet more precise measure for the astronomical unit, the IAU formally adopted a new definition. Equivalently, by definition, one AU is the radius of an unperturbed circular Newtonian orbit about the sun of a particle having infinitesimal mass. As with all measurements, these rely on measuring the time taken for photons to be reflected from an object. However, for precision the calculations require adjustment for such as the motions of the probe. In addition, the measurement of the time itself must be translated to a scale that accounts for relativistic time dilation
8.
Orders of magnitude (length)
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The following are examples of orders of magnitude for different lengths. To help compare different orders of magnitude, the following list describes various lengths between 1. 6×10−35 meters and 101010122 meters,100 pm –1 Ångström 120 pm – radius of a gold atom 150 pm – Length of a typical covalent bond. 280 pm – Average size of the water molecule 298 pm – radius of a caesium atom, light travels 1 metre in 1⁄299,792,458, or 3. 3356409519815E-9 of a second. 25 metres – wavelength of the broadcast radio shortwave band at 12 MHz 29 metres – height of the lighthouse at Savudrija, Slovenia. 31 metres – wavelength of the broadcast radio shortwave band at 9.7 MHz 34 metres – height of the Split Point Lighthouse in Aireys Inlet, Victoria, Australia. 1 kilometre is equal to,1,000 metres 0.621371 miles 1,093.61 yards 3,280.84 feet 39,370.1 inches 100,000 centimetres 1,000,000 millimetres Side of a square of area 1 km2. Radius of a circle of area π km2,1.637 km – deepest dive of Lake Baikal in Russia, the worlds largest fresh water lake. 2.228 km – height of Mount Kosciuszko, highest point in Australia Most of Manhattan is from 3 to 4 km wide, farsang, a modern unit of measure commonly used in Iran and Turkey. Usage of farsang before 1926 may be for a precise unit derived from parasang. It is the altitude at which the FAI defines spaceflight to begin, to help compare orders of magnitude, this page lists lengths between 100 and 1,000 kilometres. 7.9 Gm – Diameter of Gamma Orionis 9, the newly improved measurement was 30% lower than the previous 2007 estimate. The size was revised in 2012 through improved measurement techniques and its faintness gives us an idea how our Sun would appear when viewed from even so close a distance as this. 350 Pm –37 light years – Distance to Arcturus 373.1 Pm –39.44 light years - Distance to TRAPPIST-1, a star recently discovered to have 7 planets around it. 400 Pm –42 light years – Distance to Capella 620 Pm –65 light years – Distance to Aldebaran This list includes distances between 1 and 10 exametres. 13 Em –1,300 light years – Distance to the Orion Nebula 14 Em –1,500 light years – Approximate thickness of the plane of the Milky Way galaxy at the Suns location 30.8568 Em –3,261. At this scale, expansion of the universe becomes significant, Distance of these objects are derived from their measured redshifts, which depends on the cosmological models used. At this scale, expansion of the universe becomes significant, Distance of these objects are derived from their measured redshifts, which depends on the cosmological models used. 590 Ym –62 billion light years – Cosmological event horizon, displays orders of magnitude in successively larger rooms Powers of Ten Travel across the Universe
9.
Semi-major and semi-minor axes
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In geometry, the major axis of an ellipse is its longest diameter, a line segment that runs through the center and both foci, with ends at the widest points of the perimeter. The semi-major axis is one half of the axis, and thus runs from the centre, through a focus. Essentially, it is the radius of an orbit at the two most distant points. For the special case of a circle, the axis is the radius. One can think of the axis as an ellipses long radius. The semi-major axis of a hyperbola is, depending on the convention, thus it is the distance from the center to either vertex of the hyperbola. A parabola can be obtained as the limit of a sequence of ellipses where one focus is fixed as the other is allowed to move arbitrarily far away in one direction. Thus a and b tend to infinity, a faster than b, the semi-minor axis is a line segment associated with most conic sections that is at right angles with the semi-major axis and has one end at the center of the conic section. It is one of the axes of symmetry for the curve, in an ellipse, the one, in a hyperbola. The semi-major axis is the value of the maximum and minimum distances r max and r min of the ellipse from a focus — that is. In astronomy these extreme points are called apsis, the semi-minor axis of an ellipse is the geometric mean of these distances, b = r max r min. The eccentricity of an ellipse is defined as e =1 − b 2 a 2 so r min = a, r max = a. Now consider the equation in polar coordinates, with one focus at the origin, the mean value of r = ℓ / and r = ℓ /, for θ = π and θ =0 is a = ℓ1 − e 2. In an ellipse, the axis is the geometric mean of the distance from the center to either focus. The semi-minor axis of an ellipse runs from the center of the ellipse to the edge of the ellipse, the semi-minor axis is half of the minor axis. The minor axis is the longest line segment perpendicular to the axis that connects two points on the ellipses edge. The semi-minor axis b is related to the axis a through the eccentricity e. A parabola can be obtained as the limit of a sequence of ellipses where one focus is fixed as the other is allowed to move arbitrarily far away in one direction
10.
Orbital eccentricity
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The orbital eccentricity of an astronomical object is a parameter that determines the amount by which its orbit around another body deviates from a perfect circle. A value of 0 is an orbit, values between 0 and 1 form an elliptical orbit,1 is a parabolic escape orbit. The term derives its name from the parameters of conic sections and it is normally used for the isolated two-body problem, but extensions exist for objects following a rosette orbit through the galaxy. In a two-body problem with inverse-square-law force, every orbit is a Kepler orbit, the eccentricity of this Kepler orbit is a non-negative number that defines its shape. The limit case between an ellipse and a hyperbola, when e equals 1, is parabola, radial trajectories are classified as elliptic, parabolic, or hyperbolic based on the energy of the orbit, not the eccentricity. Radial orbits have zero angular momentum and hence eccentricity equal to one, keeping the energy constant and reducing the angular momentum, elliptic, parabolic, and hyperbolic orbits each tend to the corresponding type of radial trajectory while e tends to 1. For a repulsive force only the trajectory, including the radial version, is applicable. For elliptical orbits, a simple proof shows that arcsin yields the projection angle of a circle to an ellipse of eccentricity e. For example, to view the eccentricity of the planet Mercury, next, tilt any circular object by that angle and the apparent ellipse projected to your eye will be of that same eccentricity. From Medieval Latin eccentricus, derived from Greek ἔκκεντρος ekkentros out of the center, from ἐκ- ek-, eccentric first appeared in English in 1551, with the definition a circle in which the earth, sun. Five years later, in 1556, a form of the word was added. The eccentricity of an orbit can be calculated from the state vectors as the magnitude of the eccentricity vector, e = | e | where. For elliptical orbits it can also be calculated from the periapsis and apoapsis since rp = a and ra = a, where a is the semimajor axis. E = r a − r p r a + r p =1 −2 r a r p +1 where, rp is the radius at periapsis. For Earths annual orbit path, ra/rp ratio = longest_radius / shortest_radius ≈1.034 relative to center point of path, the eccentricity of the Earths orbit is currently about 0.0167, the Earths orbit is nearly circular. Venus and Neptune have even lower eccentricity, over hundreds of thousands of years, the eccentricity of the Earths orbit varies from nearly 0.0034 to almost 0.058 as a result of gravitational attractions among the planets. The table lists the values for all planets and dwarf planets, Mercury has the greatest orbital eccentricity of any planet in the Solar System. Such eccentricity is sufficient for Mercury to receive twice as much solar irradiation at perihelion compared to aphelion, before its demotion from planet status in 2006, Pluto was considered to be the planet with the most eccentric orbit
11.
Mean anomaly
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In celestial mechanics, the mean anomaly is an angle used in calculating the position of a body in an elliptical orbit in the classical two-body problem. Define T as the time required for a body to complete one orbit. In time T, the radius vector sweeps out 2π radians or 360°. The average rate of sweep, n, is then n =2 π T or n =360 ∘ T, define τ as the time at which the body is at the pericenter. From the above definitions, a new quantity, M, the mean anomaly can be defined M = n, because the rate of increase, n, is a constant average, the mean anomaly increases uniformly from 0 to 2π radians or 0° to 360° during each orbit. It is equal to 0 when the body is at the pericenter, π radians at the apocenter, if the mean anomaly is known at any given instant, it can be calculated at any later instant by simply adding n δt where δt represents the time difference. Mean anomaly does not measure an angle between any physical objects and it is simply a convenient uniform measure of how far around its orbit a body has progressed since pericenter. The mean anomaly is one of three parameters that define a position along an orbit, the other two being the eccentric anomaly and the true anomaly. Define l as the longitude, the angular distance of the body from the same reference direction. Thus mean anomaly is also M = l − ϖ, mean angular motion can also be expressed, n = μ a 3, where μ is a gravitational parameter which varies with the masses of the objects, and a is the semi-major axis of the orbit. Mean anomaly can then be expanded, M = μ a 3, and here mean anomaly represents uniform angular motion on a circle of radius a
12.
Degree (angle)
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A degree, usually denoted by °, is a measurement of a plane angle, defined so that a full rotation is 360 degrees. It is not an SI unit, as the SI unit of measure is the radian. Because a full rotation equals 2π radians, one degree is equivalent to π/180 radians, the original motivation for choosing the degree as a unit of rotations and angles is unknown. One theory states that it is related to the fact that 360 is approximately the number of days in a year. Ancient astronomers noticed that the sun, which follows through the path over the course of the year. Some ancient calendars, such as the Persian calendar, used 360 days for a year, the use of a calendar with 360 days may be related to the use of sexagesimal numbers. The earliest trigonometry, used by the Babylonian astronomers and their Greek successors, was based on chords of a circle, a chord of length equal to the radius made a natural base quantity. One sixtieth of this, using their standard sexagesimal divisions, was a degree, Aristarchus of Samos and Hipparchus seem to have been among the first Greek scientists to exploit Babylonian astronomical knowledge and techniques systematically. Timocharis, Aristarchus, Aristillus, Archimedes, and Hipparchus were the first Greeks known to divide the circle in 360 degrees of 60 arc minutes, eratosthenes used a simpler sexagesimal system dividing a circle into 60 parts. Furthermore, it is divisible by every number from 1 to 10 except 7 and this property has many useful applications, such as dividing the world into 24 time zones, each of which is nominally 15° of longitude, to correlate with the established 24-hour day convention. Finally, it may be the case more than one of these factors has come into play. For many practical purposes, a degree is a small enough angle that whole degrees provide sufficient precision. When this is not the case, as in astronomy or for geographic coordinates, degree measurements may be written using decimal degrees, with the symbol behind the decimals. Alternatively, the sexagesimal unit subdivisions can be used. One degree is divided into 60 minutes, and one minute into 60 seconds, use of degrees-minutes-seconds is also called DMS notation. These subdivisions, also called the arcminute and arcsecond, are represented by a single and double prime. For example,40. 1875° = 40° 11′ 15″, or, using quotation mark characters, additional precision can be provided using decimals for the arcseconds component. The older system of thirds, fourths, etc. which continues the sexagesimal unit subdivision, was used by al-Kashi and other ancient astronomers, but is rarely used today
13.
Orbital inclination
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Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an objects orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Earth directly above the equator, the plane of the orbit is the same as the Earths equatorial plane. The general case is that the orbit is tilted, it spends half an orbit over the northern hemisphere. If the orbit swung between 20° north latitude and 20° south latitude, then its orbital inclination would be 20°, the inclination is one of the six orbital elements describing the shape and orientation of a celestial orbit. It is the angle between the plane and the plane of reference, normally stated in degrees. For a satellite orbiting a planet, the plane of reference is usually the plane containing the planets equator, for planets in the Solar System, the plane of reference is usually the ecliptic, the plane in which the Earth orbits the Sun. This reference plane is most practical for Earth-based observers, therefore, Earths inclination is, by definition, zero. Inclination could instead be measured with respect to another plane, such as the Suns equator or the invariable plane, the inclination of orbits of natural or artificial satellites is measured relative to the equatorial plane of the body they orbit, if they orbit sufficiently closely. The equatorial plane is the perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the central body. An inclination of 30° could also be described using an angle of 150°, the convention is that the normal orbit is prograde, an orbit in the same direction as the planet rotates. Inclinations greater than 90° describe retrograde orbits, thus, An inclination of 0° means the orbiting body has a prograde orbit in the planets equatorial plane. An inclination greater than 0° and less than 90° also describe prograde orbits, an inclination of 63. 4° is often called a critical inclination, when describing artificial satellites orbiting the Earth, because they have zero apogee drift. An inclination of exactly 90° is an orbit, in which the spacecraft passes over the north and south poles of the planet. An inclination greater than 90° and less than 180° is a retrograde orbit, an inclination of exactly 180° is a retrograde equatorial orbit. For gas giants, the orbits of moons tend to be aligned with the giant planets equator, the inclination of exoplanets or members of multiple stars is the angle of the plane of the orbit relative to the plane perpendicular to the line-of-sight from Earth to the object. An inclination of 0° is an orbit, meaning the plane of its orbit is parallel to the sky. An inclination of 90° is an orbit, meaning the plane of its orbit is perpendicular to the sky
14.
Longitude of the ascending node
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The longitude of the ascending node is one of the orbital elements used to specify the orbit of an object in space. It is the angle from a direction, called the origin of longitude, to the direction of the ascending node. The ascending node is the point where the orbit of the passes through the plane of reference. Commonly used reference planes and origins of longitude include, For a geocentric orbit, Earths equatorial plane as the plane. In this case, the longitude is called the right ascension of the ascending node. The angle is measured eastwards from the First Point of Aries to the node, for a heliocentric orbit, the ecliptic as the reference plane, and the First Point of Aries as the origin of longitude. The angle is measured counterclockwise from the First Point of Aries to the node, the angle is measured eastwards from north to the node. pp.40,72,137, chap. In the case of a star known only from visual observations, it is not possible to tell which node is ascending. In this case the orbital parameter which is recorded is the longitude of the node, Ω, here, n=<nx, ny, nz> is a vector pointing towards the ascending node. The reference plane is assumed to be the xy-plane, and the origin of longitude is taken to be the positive x-axis, K is the unit vector, which is the normal vector to the xy reference plane. For non-inclined orbits, Ω is undefined, for computation it is then, by convention, set equal to zero, that is, the ascending node is placed in the reference direction, which is equivalent to letting n point towards the positive x-axis. Kepler orbits Equinox Orbital node perturbation of the plane can cause revolution of the ascending node
15.
Argument of periapsis
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The argument of periapsis, symbolized as ω, is one of the orbital elements of an orbiting body. Parametrically, ω is the angle from the ascending node to its periapsis. For specific types of orbits, words such as perihelion, perigee, periastron, an argument of periapsis of 0° means that the orbiting body will be at its closest approach to the central body at the same moment that it crosses the plane of reference from South to North. An argument of periapsis of 90° means that the body will reach periapsis at its northmost distance from the plane of reference. Adding the argument of periapsis to the longitude of the ascending node gives the longitude of the periapsis, however, especially in discussions of binary stars and exoplanets, the terms longitude of periapsis or longitude of periastron are often used synonymously with argument of periapsis. In the case of equatorial orbits, the argument is strictly undefined, where, ex and ey are the x- and y-components of the eccentricity vector e. In the case of circular orbits it is assumed that the periapsis is placed at the ascending node. Kepler orbit Orbital mechanics Orbital node
16.
Minimum orbit intersection distance
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Minimum orbit intersection distance is a measure used in astronomy to assess potential close approaches and collision risks between astronomical objects. It is defined as the distance between the closest points of the orbits of two bodies. Of greatest interest is the risk of a collision with Earth, Earth MOID is often listed on comet and asteroid databases such as the JPL Small-Body Database. MOID values are defined with respect to other bodies as well, Jupiter MOID, Venus MOID. An object is classified as a hazardous object – that is, posing a possible risk to Earth – if, among other conditions. A low MOID does not mean that a collision is inevitable as the planets frequently perturb the orbit of small bodies. It is also necessary that the two bodies reach that point in their orbits at the time before the smaller body is perturbed into a different orbit with a different MOID value. Two Objects gravitationally locked in orbital resonance may never approach one another, numerical integrations become increasingly divergent as trajectories are projected further forward in time, especially beyond times where the smaller body is repeatedly perturbed by other planets. MOID has the convenience that it is obtained directly from the elements of the body. The only object that has ever been rated at 4 on the Torino Scale and this is not the smallest Earth MOID in the catalogues, many bodies with a small Earth MOID are not classed as PHOs because the objects are less than roughly 140 meters in diameter. Earth MOID values are more practical for asteroids less than 140 meters in diameter as those asteroids are very dim. It is even smaller at the more precise JPL Small Body Database
17.
Hour
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An hour is a unit of time conventionally reckoned as 1⁄24 of a day and scientifically reckoned as 3, 599–3,601 seconds, depending on conditions. The seasonal, temporal, or unequal hour was established in the ancient Near East as 1⁄12 of the night or daytime, such hours varied by season, latitude, and weather. It was subsequently divided into 60 minutes, each of 60 seconds, the modern English word hour is a development of the Anglo-Norman houre and Middle English ure, first attested in the 13th century. It displaced the Old English tide and stound, the Anglo-Norman term was a borrowing of Old French ure, a variant of ore, which derived from Latin hōra and Greek hṓrā. Like Old English tīd and stund, hṓrā was originally a word for any span of time, including seasons. Its Proto-Indo-European root has been reconstructed as *yeh₁-, making hour distantly cognate with year, the time of day is typically expressed in English in terms of hours. Whole hours on a 12-hour clock are expressed using the contracted phrase oclock, Hours on a 24-hour clock are expressed as hundred or hundred hours. Fifteen and thirty minutes past the hour is expressed as a quarter past or after and half past, respectively, fifteen minutes before the hour may be expressed as a quarter to, of, till, or before the hour. Sumerian and Babylonian hours divided the day and night into 24 equal hours, the ancient Egyptians began dividing the night into wnwt at some time before the compilation of the Dynasty V Pyramid Texts in the 24th century BC. By 2150 BC, diagrams of stars inside Egyptian coffin lids—variously known as diagonal calendars or star clocks—attest that there were exactly 12 of these. The coffin diagrams show that the Egyptians took note of the risings of 36 stars or constellations. Each night, the rising of eleven of these decans were noted, the original decans used by the Egyptians would have fallen noticeably out of their proper places over a span of several centuries. By the time of Amenhotep III, the priests at Karnak were using water clocks to determine the hours and these were filled to the brim at sunset and the hour determined by comparing the water level against one of its twelve gauges, one for each month of the year. During the New Kingdom, another system of decans was used, the later division of the day into 12 hours was accomplished by sundials marked with ten equal divisions. The morning and evening periods when the failed to note time were observed as the first and last hours. The Egyptian hours were closely connected both with the priesthood of the gods and with their divine services, by the New Kingdom, each hour was conceived as a specific region of the sky or underworld through which Ras solar bark travelled. Protective deities were assigned to each and were used as the names of the hours, as the protectors and resurrectors of the sun, the goddesses of the night hours were considered to hold power over all lifespans and thus became part of Egyptian funerary rituals. The Egyptian for astronomer, used as a synonym for priest, was wnwty, the earliest forms of wnwt include one or three stars, with the later solar hours including the determinative hieroglyph for sun
18.
Day
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In common usage, it is either an interval equal to 24 hours or daytime, the consecutive period of time during which the Sun is above the horizon. The period of time during which the Earth completes one rotation with respect to the Sun is called a solar day, several definitions of this universal human concept are used according to context, need and convenience. In 1960, the second was redefined in terms of the motion of the Earth. The unit of measurement day, redefined in 1960 as 86400 SI seconds and symbolized d, is not an SI unit, but is accepted for use with SI. The word day may also refer to a day of the week or to a date, as in answer to the question. The life patterns of humans and many species are related to Earths solar day. In recent decades the average length of a day on Earth has been about 86400.002 seconds. A day, understood as the span of time it takes for the Earth to make one rotation with respect to the celestial background or a distant star, is called a stellar day. This period of rotation is about 4 minutes less than 24 hours, mainly due to tidal effects, the Earths rotational period is not constant, resulting in further minor variations for both solar days and stellar days. Other planets and moons have stellar and solar days of different lengths to Earths, besides the day of 24 hours, the word day is used for several different spans of time based on the rotation of the Earth around its axis. An important one is the day, defined as the time it takes for the Sun to return to its culmination point. Because the Earth orbits the Sun elliptically as the Earth spins on an inclined axis, on average over the year this day is equivalent to 24 hours. A day, in the sense of daytime that is distinguished from night-time, is defined as the period during which sunlight directly reaches the ground. The length of daytime averages slightly more than half of the 24-hour day, two effects make daytime on average longer than nights. The Sun is not a point, but has an apparent size of about 32 minutes of arc, additionally, the atmosphere refracts sunlight in such a way that some of it reaches the ground even when the Sun is below the horizon by about 34 minutes of arc. So the first light reaches the ground when the centre of the Sun is still below the horizon by about 50 minutes of arc, the difference in time depends on the angle at which the Sun rises and sets, but can amount to around seven minutes. Ancient custom has a new day start at either the rising or setting of the Sun on the local horizon, the exact moment of, and the interval between, two sunrises or sunsets depends on the geographical position, and the time of year. A more constant day can be defined by the Sun passing through the local meridian, the exact moment is dependent on the geographical longitude, and to a lesser extent on the time of the year
19.
NASA
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29,1958, disestablishing NASAs predecessor, the new agency became operational on October 1,1958. Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. NASA shares data with various national and international such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. Since 2011, NASA has been criticized for low cost efficiency, from 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard, after the Soviet launch of the worlds first artificial satellite on October 4,1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in February 1958 to develop technology for military application. On July 29,1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, a NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA, earlier research efforts within the US Air Force and many of ARPAs early space programs were also transferred to NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter, the experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for manned spaceflight. This was followed by a space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, however, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory, to date, NASA has launched a total of 166 manned space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude,260,000 feet. The X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force, the design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems
20.
Deep Impact (spacecraft)
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Deep Impact was a NASA space probe launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 18,47 UTC on January 12,2005. It was designed to study the composition of the comet Tempel 1. At 05,52 UTC on July 4,2005, the impactor successfully collided with the comets nucleus, the impact excavated debris from the interior of the nucleus, forming an impact crater. Photographs taken by the spacecraft showed the comet to be more dusty, the impact generated an unexpectedly large and bright dust cloud, obscuring the view of the impact crater. Previous space missions to comets, such as Giotto and Stardust, were fly-by missions and these missions were able to photograph and examine only the surfaces of cometary nuclei, and even then from considerable distances. The Deep Impact mission was the first to eject material from a surface, and the mission garnered large publicity from the media, international scientists. Upon the completion of its mission, proposals were made to further utilize the spacecraft. Consequently, Deep Impact flew by Earth on December 31,2007 on its way to a mission, designated EPOXI, with a dual purpose to study extrasolar planets. By observing the composition of the comet, astronomers hoped to determine how comets form based on the differences between the interior and exterior makeup of the comet, observations of the impact and its aftermath would allow astronomers to attempt to determine the answers to these questions. The missions Principal Investigator was Michael AHearn, an astronomer at the University of Maryland, the Flyby spacecraft is about 3.2 meters long,1.7 meters wide and 2.3 meters high. It includes two panels, a debris shield, and several science instruments for imaging, infrared spectroscopy. The spacecraft also carried two cameras, the High Resolution Imager, and the Medium Resolution Imager.05 to 4.8 micrometres and it has been optimized for observing the comets nucleus. The MRI is the device, and was used primarily for navigation during the final 10-day approach. It also has a wheel, with a slightly different set of filters. The Impactor section of the spacecraft contains an instrument that is identical to the MRI, called the Impactor Targeting Sensor. Its dual purpose was to sense the Impactors trajectory, which could then be adjusted up to four times between release and impact, and to image the comet from close range, the final image taken by the impactor was snapped only 3.7 seconds before impact. The impactors payload, dubbed the Cratering Mass, was 100% copper, including this cratering mass, copper formed 49% of total mass of the impactor, this was to minimize interference with scientific measurements. Since copper was not expected to be found on a comet, instead of using explosives, it was also cheaper to use copper as the payload
21.
Arecibo Observatory
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The Arecibo Observatory is a radio telescope in the municipality of Arecibo, Puerto Rico. This observatory is operated by SRI International, USRA and UMET, the observatory is the sole facility of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, which refers to the observatory, and the staff that operates it. From its construction in the 1960s until 2011, the observatory was managed by Cornell University and it is used in three major areas of research, radio astronomy, atmospheric science, and radar astronomy. Scientists who want to use the observatory submit proposals that are evaluated by an independent scientific board, the observatory has appeared in film and television productions, gaining more recognition in 1999 when it began to collect data for the SETI@home project. It has been listed on the American National Register of Historic Places starting in 2008 and it was the featured listing in the National Park Services weekly list of October 3,2008. The center was named an IEEE Milestone in 2001 and it has a visitor center that is open part-time. The main collecting dish is 305 m in diameter, constructed inside the left by a karst sinkhole. The dish surface is made of 38,778 perforated aluminum panels, each about 3 by 6 feet, the ground beneath is accessible and supports shade-tolerant vegetation. The observatory has four transmitters, with effective isotropic radiated powers of 20 TW at 2380 MHz,2.5 TW at 430 MHz,300 MW at 47 MHz. The reflector is a reflector, not a parabolic reflector. To aim the device, the receiver is moved to intercept signals reflected from different directions by the dish surface of 270 m radius. A parabolic mirror would have varying astigmatism when the receiver is off the focal point, the platform has a rotating, bow-shaped track 93 m long, called the azimuth arm, carrying the receiving antennas and secondary and tertiary reflectors. This allows the telescope to observe any region of the sky in a cone of visibility about the local zenith. Puerto Ricos location near the Northern Tropic allows Arecibo to view the planets in the Solar System over the Northern half of their orbit. The round trip time to objects beyond Saturn is longer than the 2.6 hour time that the telescope can track a celestial position. The origins of the trace to late 1950s efforts to develop anti-ballistic missile defences as part of the newly formed ARPAs ABM umbrella-effort. Even at this stage it was clear that the use of radar decoys would be a serious problem at the long ranges needed to successfully attack a warhead. Among the many Defender projects were several studies based on the concept that a nuclear warhead would cause unique physical signatures while still in the upper atmosphere
22.
Year 2000 problem
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The Year 2000 problem, also known as the Y2K problem, the Millennium bug, the Y2K bug, or Y2K, was a computer bug related to the formatting and storage of calendar data. Problems were anticipated, and arose, because twentieth-century software often represented the year with only the final two digits—making the year 2000 indistinguishable from 1900. The assumption of a date in such programs caused various errors, such as the incorrect display of dates. It identifies two problems that may exist in computer programs. First, the practice of representing the year with two digits became problematic with logical error arising upon rollover from x99 to x00. This had caused some date-related processing to operate incorrectly for dates and times on and after 1 January 2000, without corrective action, long-working systems would break down when the. Ascending numbering assumption suddenly became invalid, years divisible by 100 are not leap years, except for years that are divisible by 400. Thus the year 2000 was a leap year, companies and organisations worldwide checked, fixed, and upgraded their computer systems to address the anticipated problem. Very few computer failures were reported when the clocks rolled over into 2000 and it is not known how many problems went unrecorded. Y2K is a numeronym and was the abbreviation for the year 2000 software problem. The abbreviation combines the letter Y for year, and k for the SI unit prefix kilo meaning 1000, hence, 2K signifies 2000. It was also named the Millennium Bug because it was associated with the popular roll-over of the millennium, the Year 2000 problem was the subject of the early book, Computers in Crisis by Jerome and Marilyn Murray. The first recorded mention of the Year 2000 Problem on a Usenet newsgroup occurred on Friday,18 January 1985, the acronym Y2K has been attributed to David Eddy, a Massachusetts programmer, in an e-mail sent on 12 June 1995. He later said, People were calling it CDC, FADL, Y2K just came off my fingertips. It was therefore important for programmers to reduce usage. As space on disc and tape was also expensive, this also saved money by reducing the size of stored data files, many computer programs stored years with only two decimal digits, for example,1980 was stored as 80. Some such programs could not distinguish between the year 2000 and the year 1900, other programs tried to represent the year 2000 as 19100. This could cause a failure and cause date comparisons to produce incorrect results
23.
Millisecond
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A millisecond is a thousandth of a second. 10 milliseconds are called a centisecond,100 milliseconds are called a decisecond. To help compare orders of magnitude of different times, this page lists times between 10−3 seconds and 100 seconds, see also times of other orders of magnitude
24.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
25.
Small Solar System body
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A Small Solar System Body is an object in the Solar System that is neither a planet, nor a dwarf planet, nor a natural satellite. The term was first defined in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union, all other objects, except satellites, orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as Small Solar System Bodies. These currently include most of the Solar System asteroids, most Trans-Neptunian Objects, comets and this encompasses all comets and all minor planets other than those that are dwarf planets. Except for the largest, which are in equilibrium, natural satellites differ from small Solar System bodies not in size. The orbits of satellites are not centered on the Sun, but around other Solar System objects such as planets, dwarf planets. Some of the larger small Solar System bodies may be reclassified in future as dwarf planets, the orbits of the vast majority of small Solar System bodies are located in two distinct areas, namely the asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt. These two belts possess some internal structure related to perturbations by the planets, and have fairly loosely defined boundaries. Other areas of the Solar System also encompass small bodies in smaller concentrations and these include the near-Earth asteroids, centaurs, comets, and scattered disc objects
26.
Minor-planet moon
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A minor-planet moon is an astronomical object that orbits a minor planet as its natural satellite. It is thought that many asteroids and Kuiper belt objects may possess moons, the first modern era mention of the possibility of an asteroid satellite was in connection with an occultation of the bright star Gamma Ceti by the minor planet Hebe in 1977. The observer, amateur astronomer Paul D. Maley, detected an unmistakable 0.5 second disappearance of this naked eye star from a site near Victoria, many hours later, several observations were reported in Mexico attributed to the occultation by Hebe itself. Although not confirmed this documents the first formally documented case of a companion of an asteroid. As of October 2016, there are over 300 minor planets known to have moons, in addition to the terms satellite and moon, the term binary is sometimes used for minor planets with moons, and triple for minor planets with two moons. If one object is much bigger it can be referred to as the primary, when binary minor planets are similar in size, the Minor Planet Center refers to them as binary companions instead of referring to the smaller body as a satellite. A good example of a true binary is the 90 Antiope system, small satellites are often referred to as moonlets. As of February 2017, over 330 moons of planets have been discovered. For example, in 1978, stellar occultation observations were claimed as evidence of a satellite for the asteroid 532 Herculina, however, later more-detailed imaging by the Hubble Telescope did not reveal a satellite, and the current consensus is that Herculina does not have a significant satellite. There were other reports of asteroids having companions in the following years. In 1993, the first asteroid moon was confirmed when the Galileo probe discovered the small Dactyl orbiting 243 Ida in the asteroid belt, the second was discovered around 45 Eugenia in 1998. In 2001,617 Patroclus and its same-sized companion Menoetius became the first known asteroids in the Jupiter trojans. The first trans-Neptunian binary after Pluto–Charon,1998 WW31, was resolved in 2002. Triple asteroids, or trinary asteroids, are known since 2005 and this was followed by the discovery of a second moon orbiting 45 Eugenia. Also in 2005, the Kuiper belt object Haumea was discovered to have two moons, making it the second KBO after Pluto known to have more than one moon, additionally,216 Kleopatra and 93 Minerva were discovered to be trinary asteroids in 2008 and 2009 respectively. Since the first few trinary asteroids were discovered, more continue to be discovered at a rate of one a year. Most recently discovered was a moon orbiting the belt asteroid 130 Elektra. List of multiple planets, The data about the populations of binary objects are still patchy
27.
Asteroid
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Asteroids are minor planets, especially those of the inner Solar System. The larger ones have also been called planetoids and these terms have historically been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did not show the disc of a planet and was not observed to have the characteristics of an active comet. As minor planets in the outer Solar System were discovered and found to have volatile-based surfaces that resemble those of comets, in this article, the term asteroid refers to the minor planets of the inner Solar System including those co-orbital with Jupiter. There are millions of asteroids, many thought to be the remnants of planetesimals. The large majority of known asteroids orbit in the belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, or are co-orbital with Jupiter. However, other orbital families exist with significant populations, including the near-Earth objects, individual asteroids are classified by their characteristic spectra, with the majority falling into three main groups, C-type, M-type, and S-type. These were named after and are identified with carbon-rich, metallic. The size of asteroids varies greatly, some reaching as much as 1000 km across, asteroids are differentiated from comets and meteoroids. In the case of comets, the difference is one of composition, while asteroids are composed of mineral and rock, comets are composed of dust. In addition, asteroids formed closer to the sun, preventing the development of the aforementioned cometary ice, the difference between asteroids and meteoroids is mainly one of size, meteoroids have a diameter of less than one meter, whereas asteroids have a diameter of greater than one meter. Finally, meteoroids can be composed of either cometary or asteroidal materials, only one asteroid,4 Vesta, which has a relatively reflective surface, is normally visible to the naked eye, and this only in very dark skies when it is favorably positioned. Rarely, small asteroids passing close to Earth may be visible to the eye for a short time. As of March 2016, the Minor Planet Center had data on more than 1.3 million objects in the inner and outer Solar System, the United Nations declared June 30 as International Asteroid Day to educate the public about asteroids. The date of International Asteroid Day commemorates the anniversary of the Tunguska asteroid impact over Siberia, the first asteroid to be discovered, Ceres, was found in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, and was originally considered to be a new planet. In the early half of the nineteenth century, the terms asteroid. Asteroid discovery methods have improved over the past two centuries. This task required that hand-drawn sky charts be prepared for all stars in the band down to an agreed-upon limit of faintness. On subsequent nights, the sky would be charted again and any moving object would, hopefully, the expected motion of the missing planet was about 30 seconds of arc per hour, readily discernible by observers
28.
Aten asteroid
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The Aten asteroids are a group of asteroids, whose orbit brings them into proximity with Earth. The group is named after 2062 Aten, the first of its kind, since then, more than 1,000 Atens have been discovered, of which many are classified as potentially hazardous asteroids. For a list of existing articles, see Aten asteroids and List of Aten asteroids, Aten asteroids are defined by having a semi-major axis of less than one astronomical unit, the average distance from the Earth to the Sun. They also have a greater than 0.983 AU. Asteroids orbits can be highly eccentric, an Aten orbit need not be entirely contained within Earths orbit, as nearly all known Aten asteroids have their aphelion greater than 1 AU although their semi-major axis is less than 1 AU. Observation of objects inferior to the Earths orbit is difficult and this difficulty may be the cause of some sampling bias in the apparent preponderance of eccentric Atens, Aten asteroids account for only about 6% of the known near-Earth asteroid population. Many more Apollo-class asteroids are known than Aten-class asteroids, possibly because of the sampling bias, the shortest semi-major axis for any known Aten asteroid is 2008 EY5 at 0.626 AU. A very small possibility of impact remained for 2036, but this was also eliminated, there are also sixteen known Apohele asteroids, traditionally listed as a subclass of Atens, but generally regarded a separate class of their own. Unlike Atens, Apoheles permanently stay within Earths orbit and do not cross it
29.
Asteroid belt
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The asteroid belt is the circumstellar disc in the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets, the asteroid belt is also termed the main asteroid belt or main belt to distinguish it from other asteroid populations in the Solar System such as near-Earth asteroids and trojan asteroids. About half the mass of the belt is contained in the four largest asteroids, Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, the total mass of the asteroid belt is approximately 4% that of the Moon, or 22% that of Pluto, and roughly twice that of Plutos moon Charon. Ceres, the belts only dwarf planet, is about 950 km in diameter, whereas Vesta, Pallas. The remaining bodies range down to the size of a dust particle, the asteroid material is so thinly distributed that numerous unmanned spacecraft have traversed it without incident. Nonetheless, collisions between large asteroids do occur, and these can form a family whose members have similar orbital characteristics. Individual asteroids within the belt are categorized by their spectra. The asteroid belt formed from the solar nebula as a group of planetesimals. Planetesimals are the precursors of the protoplanets. Between Mars and Jupiter, however, gravitational perturbations from Jupiter imbued the protoplanets with too much energy for them to accrete into a planet. Collisions became too violent, and instead of fusing together, the planetesimals, as a result,99. 9% of the asteroid belts original mass was lost in the first 100 million years of the Solar Systems history. Some fragments eventually found their way into the inner Solar System, Asteroid orbits continue to be appreciably perturbed whenever their period of revolution about the Sun forms an orbital resonance with Jupiter. At these orbital distances, a Kirkwood gap occurs as they are swept into other orbits. Classes of small Solar System bodies in other regions are the objects, the centaurs, the Kuiper belt objects, the scattered disc objects, the sednoids. On 22 January 2014, ESA scientists reported the detection, for the first definitive time, of water vapor on Ceres, the detection was made by using the far-infrared abilities of the Herschel Space Observatory. The finding was unexpected because comets, not asteroids, are considered to sprout jets. According to one of the scientists, The lines are becoming more and more blurred between comets and asteroids. This pattern, now known as the Titius–Bode law, predicted the semi-major axes of the six planets of the provided one allowed for a gap between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter
30.
Asteroid family
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An asteroid family is a population of asteroids that share similar proper orbital elements, such as semimajor axis, eccentricity, and orbital inclination. The members of the families are thought to be fragments of past asteroid collisions, an asteroid family is a more specific term than asteroid group whose members, while sharing some broad orbital characteristics, may be otherwise unrelated to each other. Large prominent families contain several hundred recognized asteroids, small, compact families can have only about ten identified members. About 33% to 35% of asteroids in the belt are family members. There are about 20 to 30 reliably recognized families, with tens of less certain groupings. One family has been identified associated with the dwarf planet Haumea, some studies have tried to find evidence of collisional families among the trojan asteroids, but at present the evidence is inconclusive. The families are thought to form as a result of collisions between asteroids, in many or most cases the parent body was shattered, but there are also several families which resulted from a large cratering event which did not disrupt the parent body. Such cratering families typically consist of a large body and a swarm of asteroids that are much smaller. Some families have complex structures which are not satisfactorily explained at the moment. Due to the method of origin, all the members have closely matching compositions for most families, notable exceptions are those families which formed from a large differentiated parent body. Asteroid families are thought to have lifetimes of the order of a billion years and this is significantly shorter than the Solar Systems age, so few if any are relics of the early Solar System. Such small asteroids then become subject to such as the Yarkovsky effect that can push them towards orbital resonances with Jupiter over time. Once there, they are relatively rapidly ejected from the asteroid belt, tentative age estimates have been obtained for some families, ranging from hundreds of millions of years to less than several million years as for the compact Karin family. Old families are thought to contain few small members, and this is the basis of the age determinations and it is supposed that many very old families have lost all the smaller and medium-sized members, leaving only a few of the largest intact. A suggested example of old family remains are the 9 Metis and 113 Amalthea pair. Further evidence for a number of past families comes from analysis of chemical ratios in iron meteorites. These show that there must have once been at least 50 to 100 parent bodies large enough to be differentiated, when the orbital elements of main belt asteroids are plotted, a number of distinct concentrations are seen against the rather uniform background distribution of generic asteroids. These concentrations are the asteroid families, the proper elements are related constants of motion that remain almost constant for times of at least tens of millions of years, and perhaps longer
31.
Jupiter trojan
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The Jupiter trojans, commonly called Trojan asteroids or just Trojans, are a large group of asteroids that share the orbit of the planet Jupiter around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each Trojan librates around one of Jupiters two stable Lagrangian points, L4, lying 60° ahead of the planet in its orbit, and L5, 60° behind. Jupiter trojans are distributed in two elongated, curved regions around these Lagrangian points with an average axis of about 5.2 AU. The first Jupiter trojan discovered,588 Achilles, was spotted in 1906 by German astronomer Max Wolf, a total of 6,178 Jupiter trojans have been found as of January 2015. By convention they are named after a mythological figure from the Trojan War. The total number of Jupiter trojans larger than 1 km in diameter is believed to be about 1 million, like main-belt asteroids, Jupiter trojans form families. Jupiter trojans are bodies with reddish, featureless spectra. The Jupiter trojans densities vary from 0.8 to 2.5 g·cm−3, Jupiter trojans are thought to have been captured into their orbits during the early stages of the Solar Systems formation or slightly later, during the migration of giant planets. NASA has announced the discovery of an Earth trojan, the trapped body will librate slowly around the point of equilibrium in a tadpole or horseshoe orbit. These leading and trailing points are called the L4 and L5 Lagrange points, however, no asteroids trapped in Lagrange points were observed until more than a century after Lagranges hypothesis. Those associated with Jupiter were the first to be discovered, E. E. Barnard made the first recorded observation of a Trojan,1999 RM11, in 1904, but neither he nor others appreciated its significance at the time. Barnard believed he saw the recently discovered Saturnian satellite Phoebe, which was only two away in the sky at the time, or possibly an asteroid. The objects identity was not realized until its orbit was calculated in 1999, in 1906–1907 two more Jupiter trojans were found by fellow German astronomer August Kopff. Hektor, like Achilles, belonged to the L4 swarm, whereas Patroclus was the first asteroid known to reside at the L5 Lagrangian point, by 1938,11 Jupiter trojans had been detected. This number increased to 14 only in 1961, as instruments improved, the rate of discovery grew rapidly, by January 2000, a total of 257 had been discovered, by May 2003, the number had grown to 1,600. Asteroids in the L4 group are named after Greek heroes, confusingly,617 Patroclus was named before the Greece/Troy rule was devised, and a Greek name thus appears in the Trojan node. The Greek node also has one misplaced asteroid,624 Hektor, estimates of the total number of Jupiter trojans are based on deep surveys of limited areas of the sky. The L4 swarm is believed to hold between 160–240,000 asteroids with diameters larger than 2 km and about 600,000 with diameters larger than 1 km
32.
Centaur (minor planet)
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Centaurs are minor planets with a semi-major axis between those of the outer planets. They have unstable orbits that cross or have crossed the orbits of one or more of the giant planets, Centaurs typically behave with characteristics of both asteroids and comets. They are named after the centaurs that were a mixture of horse. It has been estimated there are around 44,000 centaurs in the Solar System with diameters larger than 1 km. The first centaur to be discovered, under the definition of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, however, they were not recognized as a distinct population until the discovery of 2060 Chiron in 1977. The largest confirmed centaur is 10199 Chariklo, which at 260 km in diameter is as big as a mid-sized main-belt asteroid, however, the lost centaur 1995 SN55 may be somewhat larger. No centaur has been photographed up close, although there is evidence that Saturns moon Phoebe, imaged by the Cassini probe in 2004, in addition, the Hubble Space Telescope has gleaned some information about the surface features of 8405 Asbolus. As of 2008, three centaurs have been found to display comet-like comas, Chiron,60558 Echeclus, and 166P/NEAT, Chiron and Echeclus are therefore classified as both asteroids and comets. Other centaurs, such as 52872 Okyrhoe and 2012 CG, are suspected of having shown comas, any centaur that is perturbed close enough to the Sun is expected to become a comet. The generic definition of a centaur is a body that orbits the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune and crosses the orbits of one or more of the giant planets. Though nowadays the MPC often lists centaurs and scattered disc objects together as a single group, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory similarly defines centaurs as having a semi-major axis, a, between those of Jupiter and Neptune. In contrast, the Deep Ecliptic Survey defines centaurs using a classification scheme. These classifications are based on the change in behavior of the present orbit when extended over 10 million years. The DES defines centaurs as non-resonant objects whose instantaneous perihelia are less than the osculating semi-major axis of Neptune at any time during the simulation and this definition is intended to be synonymous with planet-crossing orbits and to suggest comparatively short lifetimes in the current orbit. The collection The Solar System Beyond Neptune defines objects with an axis between those of Jupiter and Neptune and a Jupiter – Tisserands parameter above 3. The JPL Small-Body Database lists 324 centaurs, there are an additional 65 trans-Neptunian objects with a perihelion closer than the orbit of Uranus. The Committee on Small Body Nomenclature of the International Astronomical Union has not formally weighed in on either side of the debate, thus far, only the binary objects Ceto and Phorcys and Typhon and Echidna have been named according to the new policy. Other objects caught between these differences in classification methods include 944 Hidalgo which was discovered in 1920 and is listed as a centaur in the JPL Small-Body Database
