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The object has no detectable atmosphere, and no large rings or satellites larger than 1.6 km (1 mi) in diameter. [129] Nonetheless, a search for a related moon (or moons) continues, which may help better explain the formation of Arrokoth from two individual orbiting objects.
2060 Chiron. 2060 Chiron is a ringed small Solar System body in the outer Solar System, orbiting the Sun between Saturn and Uranus. Discovered in 1977 by Charles Kowal, it was the first-identified member of a new class of objects now known as centaurs —bodies orbiting between the asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt.
Ring system. The moons Prometheus (right) and Pandora (left) orbit just inside and outside, respectively, the F ring of Saturn, but only Prometheus is thought to function as a shepherd moon. A ring system is a disc or torus orbiting an astronomical object that is composed of solid material such as gas, dust, meteoroids, planetoids or moonlets ...
There is a barely visible continuation of the ring beyond the orbit of Thebe, extending up to 280 000 km (3.75 R J) and called the Thebe Extension. [2] [31] In forward-scattered light the ring appears to be about 3 times fainter than the Amalthea gossamer ring. [2] In back-scattered light it has been detected only by the Keck telescope. [4]
The inner protoplanets were Venus-Mercury and Earth-Mars. The moons of the greater planets were formed from "droplets" in the neck connecting the two portions of the dividing protoplanet. These droplets could account for some asteroids. Terrestrial planets would have no major moons, which does not account for the Moon. The hypothesis also ...
The various planets are thought to have formed from the solar nebula, the disc-shaped cloud of gas and dust left over from the Sun's formation. [36] The currently accepted method by which the planets formed is accretion, in which the planets began as dust grains in orbit
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume, by a small margin, but is less massive than Eris.
Such a planet would lie within the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, about 0.023–0.054 AU (3.4–8.1 million km) from the star, and would have an orbital period of 3.6–14 days. [86] A planet orbiting within this zone may experience tidal locking to the star. If the orbital eccentricity of this hypothetical planet were low, Proxima ...