The universe is full of three bodies systems, including the nearest stars on Earth; Kuiper’s waist may be no exception.
The puzzle to predict as three gravitational bodies move in space has challenged mathematicians for centuries, and has been more recently popularized in the novel and television series “3 Body Problem”. However, there is no problem with what a team of investigators says is probably a stable trio of cold space rocks at the solar system’s kuiper waistdiscovered based on NASA Hubble Space Telescope data and WM Keck Observatory in Hawaii.
If confirmed as the second three -bodies system found in the region, System 148780 Altjira suggests that there may be similar triples waiting to be discovered, which would support a particular theory of the history of our solar system and the formation of kuiper waist objects (English acronym, “Kuiper Belt Object”).
“O Universe is full of three bodies, including the stars closest to Earth, the Alpha Centauri star system, and We are discovering that Kuiper’s waist may be no exception“The main author of the study, Maia Nelsen, a degree in Physics and Astronomy from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, USA.
Known since 1992, the Kbos are cold and primitive remnants of the beginning of the solar system that are beyond Neptune orbit. To date, more than 3000 kbos have been cataloged and scientists estimate that there may be several hundred thousands of others that mend more than 16 kilometers in diameter. The largest kbo is the dwarf planet Pluto.
Hubble’s discovery is a crucial support for a Kbos formation theory, according to which three small rocky bodies would not be the result of a bustling kuiper waist, but formed as a trio directly from the gravitational material collapse on the material disk that surrounded the newly formed sun, about 4.5 billion years ago. It is well known that the stars form for gravitational gas collapseUsually in pairs or triples, but the idea that cosmic objects like those in the waist of Kuiper form in a similar way is still being investigated.
The system Altjira It is located us Solar System Confinesapproximately 6 billion kilometers away, about 44 times the distance between the earth and the sun. Hubble images show two kbos separated by about 7600 kilometers. However, researchers claim that repeated observations of the unique coorbital movement of objects indicate that the inner object is actually two bodies which are so close that they cannot be distinguished at such a distance.
“With such small and distant objects, the separation between the two interior limbs of the system is a fraction of a pixel in the Hubble chamber, so you need to use non -image methods to find out that it is a triple,” said Nelsen.
This requires time and patience, explained Nelsen. Scientists gathered an observation base of 17 years of data Hubble and Keck Observatory, observing the orbit of the outer object of the Altjira system.
“Over time, we saw the orbit of the outer object orbit change, indicating that the inner object was either very elongated or was actually two separate objects,” said Darin Ragozzine, also from Brigham Young, co -author of the Altjira study.
“One triple system was the one that best filed When we placed Hubble data in different modeling scenarios, ”said Nelsen. “Other possibilities are that the inner object is a contact binaryin which two separate bodies are so close that they touch, or something that is strangely flat, like a pancake. ”
Currently there are about 40 binary objects identified in the waist of Kuiper. Now, with two of these probably triple systems, researchers say they are more likely to be looking at something so unusual, but to a three -bodied systems population formed by the same circumstances. However, evidence accumulation takes time and requires repeated observations.
The only objects of the kuiper waist that were explored in detail are Pluto and the smallest Arkoth object, which NASA’s New Horizons mission visited in 2015 and 2019, respectively. New Horizons has shown that Arkoth is a contact binary, which for the Kbos means that two objects that have come closer and closer to each other are now touching and/or founded, often resulting in a peanut form. Ragozzine describes Altjira as an “cousin” of Arkoth, a member of the same group of objects from Kuiper’s waist. However, it is estimated that Altjira is 10 times larger than Arkothwith 200 kilometers wide.
Although there is no mission planned to pass Altjira for details at Arkoth level, Nelsen said there is a different future opportunity for a deeper study of the intriguing system. “Altjira entered an eclipse time, when the outer body passes in front of the central body. This will last the next ten years, giving scientists a great opportunity to learn more about the system, ”said Nelsen. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is also participating in Altjira’s study as it will see if the components have the same aspect in their upcoming observations in cycle 3.
The Hubble study was in The Planetary Science Journal.
