Kolloquien
URL zum ICS-Kalender dieses Seminars
Kirchhoff-Institut für Physik, Otto-Haxel-Hörsaal
freitags 17:15
Vorträge
5.5.2017 17:00
KIP, INF 227, Otto-Haxel-Hörsaal
At the outskirts of the solar system, beyond the orbit of Neptune, lies an expansive field
of icy debris known as the
Kuiper belt. The orbits of the individual asteroid-
like bodies
within the Kuiper belt trace out highly elongated elliptical paths, and require hundreds
to thousands of years to complete a single revolution around the Sun. Although the
majority of the Kuip
er belt’s dynamical structure can be understood within the
framework of the known eight-planet solar system, bodies with orbital periods longer
than about 4,000 years exhibit a peculiar orbital alignment that eludes explanation.
What sculpts this alignment
and how is it preserved? In this talk, I will argue that the
observed clustering of Kuiper belt orbits can be maintained by a distant, eccentric,
Neptune-like planet, whose orbit lies in approximately the same plane as those of the
distant Kuiper belt obj
ects, but is anti
-aligned with respect to those of the small bodies.
In addition to accounting for the observed grouping of orbits, the existence of such a
planet naturally explains other, seemingly unrelated dynamical features of the solar
system.