Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Kuiper's Kirkwood

The second Kuiper is confirmed. There's a gap spanning the 60s AU; New Horizons is presently at the hither edge of this boundary. Around 70-75 AU the iceballs reäppear before tapering-off with the Subaru's decreasing ability to see 'em.

I'm interested in the gap itself. This is not the obvious Neptunian (164.8-year) Kirkwood which should be 47.7 AU - with plenty of KBOs. The year out at 64 AU = √(64*64*64) = 512 Earth years. This would be in 2:1 resonance, instead, with something 1024 years; 32768 AU.

That is... a lot. Other resonances are of course possible, but Hilda's 3:2 should be fine as long as they're offset by eccentricity and angle.

So they're not talking about some "Planet Nine" at least not here. The nebula just formed like this; like other T Tauri's do.

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