astronomy
NATSCI-1 (2:30 – 4:00 pm) Submitted by : Jennie Rose S. Almasan Submitted to : Prof.Landingin “ NASA's WISE Finds Mysterious Centaurs May Be Comets”
New observations from NASA's NEOWISE project reveal the hidden nature of centaurs, objects in our solar system that have confounded astronomers for resembling both asteroids and comets. The centaurs, which orbit between Jupiter and Neptune, were named after the mythical half-horse, half-human creatures called centaurs due to their dual nature. This artist's concept shows a centaur creature together with asteroids on the left and comets at right. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
July 25, 2013
PASADENA, Calf. -- The true identity of centaurs, the small celestial bodies orbiting the sun between Jupiter and Neptune, is one of the enduring mysteries of astrophysics. Are they asteroids or comets? A new study of observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) finds most centaurs are comets.
Until now, astronomers were not certain whether centaurs are asteroids flung out from the inner solar system or comets traveling in toward the sun from afar. Because of their dual nature, they take their name from the creature in Greek mythology whose head and torso are human and legs are those of a horse.
"Just like the mythical creatures, the centaur objects seem to have a double life," said James Bauer of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Bauer is lead author of a paper published online July 22 in the Astrophysical Journal. "Our data point to a cometary origin for most of the objects, suggesting they are coming from deeper out in the solar system."
"Cometary origin" means an object likely is made from the same material as a comet, may have been an active comet in the past, and may be active again in the future.
The findings come from the largest infrared survey to date of centaurs and their more distant cousins, called scattered disk
New observations from NASA's NEOWISE project reveal the hidden nature of centaurs, objects in our solar system that have confounded astronomers for resembling both asteroids and comets. The centaurs, which orbit between Jupiter and Neptune, were named after the mythical half-horse, half-human creatures called centaurs due to their dual nature. This artist's concept shows a centaur creature together with asteroids on the left and comets at right. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
July 25, 2013
PASADENA, Calf. -- The true identity of centaurs, the small celestial bodies orbiting the sun between Jupiter and Neptune, is one of the enduring mysteries of astrophysics. Are they asteroids or comets? A new study of observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) finds most centaurs are comets.
Until now, astronomers were not certain whether centaurs are asteroids flung out from the inner solar system or comets traveling in toward the sun from afar. Because of their dual nature, they take their name from the creature in Greek mythology whose head and torso are human and legs are those of a horse.
"Just like the mythical creatures, the centaur objects seem to have a double life," said James Bauer of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Bauer is lead author of a paper published online July 22 in the Astrophysical Journal. "Our data point to a cometary origin for most of the objects, suggesting they are coming from deeper out in the solar system."
"Cometary origin" means an object likely is made from the same material as a comet, may have been an active comet in the past, and may be active again in the future.
The findings come from the largest infrared survey to date of centaurs and their more distant cousins, called scattered disk