Beyond Pluto
Contact: John Davies
We now know that there are thousands of icy worlds in orbit beyond Pluto. These seem to fall into 3 groups. One group comprises objects which are in orbits that, like Pluto, come close to or cross the orbit of Neptune but are stabilised in these orbits because their orbital period is syncronised with the orbital period of Neptune. A second group are in more-or-less circular orbits well beyond Neptune. The third group are in very elongated orbits which take them a long way from the Sun and they only approach the Neptune region when they are at the innermost parts of their orbits. How did they form? What are they made of? What can they tell us about the 4.5 billion year history of the solar system? I observe these objects to find out what they are made of, how quickly they rotate, how they are related to each other and to the comets which we see in the inner solar system. (Contact: John Davies)