The Origin of Pluto

[sothisrising]

I was looking at some peculiarities between Pluto and Saturn and noticed Saturn's rings should point to Pluto at or near perihelion when both are on the same side of the sun. And if you subtract Saturns distance from the Sun from Pluto's extremes, you get a 2:1 ratio. Both planets share similar ascending nodes I believe. Now I'm no brainiac here and the numbers may be way off, but can someone with the Know-how check this?<br /><br />

 

[qso1]

Distance to Saturn, minimum is about 1,347 million km and maximum is about 1,507 million km.<br /><br />Distance to Pluto, about 4,425 million km minimum to 7,375 million km maximum.<br /><br />Ratio is more like a range between 2.9-5.5.<br /><br />Saturns inclination which would include the ring system, is 26.7 degrees. Plutos orbital inclination around the sun is 17 degrees.<br /><br />I haven't checked the rings pointing to Pluto data but if as your post implies, you think Pluto originated from Saturns ring system which in and of itself is an interesting theory but I'm not sure there is a close enough relationship to the data and the theory so far.<br /><br />Pluto is probably a KBO that happens to be closest to the sun.<br /><br />BTW, welcome to the boards and hope to see more posts. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[vogon13]

Compare the length of the Neptunian year to that of Pluto's sometime . . . .<br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

There has been speculation on these boards about a past relationship between Pluto and Triton, Neptune's largest moon. Triton is an oddball; it's very big compared to the other Neptunian satellites, and most notably, it orbits retrograde (backwards), an unstable orbit which puts the moon under enormous stress, so much so that it is one of the handful of places with active volcanism. (In Triton's case, this amounts to geysers of liquid nitrogen. Triton may be active, but it is still very cold.)<br /><br />In general, most scientists shy from reaching the conclusion that they're related, as there isn't enough data to support it. It is possible, but there's no way to know at present. However, most scientists do suspect that Triton was a captured Kuiper Belt Object similar to Pluto, and that Pluto's orbit was also disturbed by Neptune at some point. Today, Pluto orbits in a resonance with Neptune, making it in some respects similar to the minor planet Cruithne, which has a vaguely similar relationship with Earth. This sort of thing may be more common than we realize. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[vogon13]

Don't forget Toro!<br /><br />I do so like Toro, the moon we share with Venus.<br /><br />It sounds so illicit . . . . .<br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[doubletruncation]

<font color="yellow">Don't forget Toro!<br /><br />I do so like Toro, the moon we share with Venus.</font><br /><br />?????????<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vogon13]

Until a century or so ago, Toro was in a (IIRC) an 8 to 13 resonance with Venus, then it bopped over to a 8 to 5 resonance with earth (it is some combination of all those numbers, sorry I don't have my asteroid book handy).<br /><br />Weird, huh?<br /><br />I just really like the idea of a fickle lover sneaking back and forth between two worlds . . . .<br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[doubletruncation]

That is weird! I never heard about it before - Thanks! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[agnau]

Even if it did originate as a moon, it might not have originated as a moon of Saturn. I have seen so much speculation that I am begining to think that the ultimate system formation theory will incorporate Chaos Theory.

 

[alokmohan]

There are plenty of such toros hanging around asteroid belt.THESE ARE INCONSEQUENTIAL.Each asteroid has a name history.There are to many of them.Wait for asteoids to come each year.Then KBOS ?

 

[vogon13]

Long term projections of Toro's path are indeterminate. Might collide with earth, Venus, or be ejected from the solar system.<br /><br />Doesn't sound inconsequential to me . . . . . . . . <br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[qso1]

Thanks for ther verification. I wasn't 100% certain myself. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[sothisrising]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Distance to Saturn, minimum is about 1,347 million km and maximum is about 1,507 million km.<br /><br />Distance to Pluto, about 4,425 million km minimum to 7,375 million km maximum.<br /><br />Ratio is more like a range between 2.9-5.5<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />I'm subtracting Saturn's mean ~1400 from Pluto's extremes to get a 1:2 ratio. That gives me about 3000 and 6000 mkm. When I originally looked at this I was using AU...<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Saturns inclination which would include the ring system, is 26.7 degrees. Plutos orbital inclination around the sun is 17 degrees.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Which is why it never crosses Neptune's path I believe, but if we extend Saturn's rings outward they appear to meet Pluto at or near its perihelion. And they share similar ascending nodes which suggests they might have been together at one time. Of course the rings would have to be pointing in the right direction and God only knows how precession might have upset that alignment after eons.<br /><br /><br />

 

[qso1]

I more or less figured thats what you had done which was the reason I'd mentioned not checking to see if Saturns rings ever pointed to Pluto. Good theory actually, the only real problem I had with it wasn't the theory, just the probability Pluto is more likely KBO than something that came off of Saturns rings. There are a lot of small moons, many as yet probably undiscovered that are within the rings or just outside the rings of Saturn. These moons are so much smaller than Pluto.<br />That led me to state not being sure about the data in your theory, especially the distance and time Pluto would have to travel to settle into its present orbit.<br /><br />BTW, I did see the approximate 2:1 ratio but it occured only at the time you mentioned. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[sothisrising]

That raises another question, we know most of the asteroids follow similar paths, do we know enough about the Kuiper Belt to see a pattern or is it more like the comets with much more apparent randomness? I'm inclined to view any belt as a debris trail from a collision. <br /><br />

 

[qso1]

I don't think we know enough yet about the Kuiper belt as its relatively new and only the larger KBOs have been observed well enough to have some idea of their orbits around the sun. The belt being a debris trail from a collision can also be seen as the ring of debris from something that never formed. The asteroid belt is a collection of objects which follow a basically similar orbit to other planets. As such, its a closed loop rather than a trail. Of course had something struck the earth and resulted in the asteroid, IMO, there should be a sufficient collection of objects that originally would have formed a trail but over the eons, as each of the individual peices settle into orbits, this should eventually result in a belt spreading between Earth and Jupiter rather than the current collection of objects being within a thin band well beyond Mars and well before Jupiter.<br /><br />I think if someone looks at all the current NEO orbits, one might be able to support the earth collision theory by showing that NEOs may be orbiting in a way that could be the trail I'm hypothesizing.<br /><br />This is something probably better illustrated, maybe I'll attempt that later. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>