Francis Nimmo

• For icy satellites, main source of energy is tides – link between orbital and geological evolution
• Some show present-day geological activity
(Enceladus, Europa, Io, Triton)
• Many show ancient geological activity
• Oceans are quite common – habitability
• Titan is unusual because it has an atmosphere and an active “hydrosphere” (liquid methane)
• Likely to be targets for future spacecraft missions

• Where do they come from?
• What are they made of?
• What do they tell us about the early Solar
System?

Ion tail pointing directly away from the Sun. Note the slightly bluish color.
Dust tail slightly curved, brighter

• Pristine (or nearly pristine) samples of high volatile components of original nebula
• Important source of volatiles and organic matter to inner solar system (astrobiology, atmospheres)
• Orbits tell us about how the early solar system was assembled

Sun nucleus
(~10 km)
Not to scale!
coma (a cloud of gas)
(~10 4 km) tail (dust) tail (ions)
~10 7 km
Note the two tails

• Composition: Water ice is the dominant constituent. There are also methane and ammonia ices (CH
4 and NH
3
) embedded in a rocky matrix.
• The model is that of a very dirty snowball or dirty iceberg. However, the outer portion of Halley’s comet (visited by Giotto and Vega 1 & 2 s/c in
1986) was found to be very, very dark, a shell of
“sludge” left behind as the vapors baked out.
• The coma is a cloud of gas which has evaporated from the nucleus due to the Sun’s energy
• It may contain nasty substances like cyanide
(HCN) as well as water vapour.
3

• As comet approaches the Sun, it is warmed by solar radiation and vapors are released, often carrying grains of dust with them.
• The comet dimensions increase and it appears to brighten, develops a tail, and the tail grows longer.
– Comets are seldom seen beyond 3 or 4 AU.
The record is 11.5 AU.
• The maximum diameter of a coma usually occurs when the comet is between 1.5 and 2.0 AU from the sun.
• Most apparently have orbital periods of thousands of years (see later).
4

• Comets are weakly bound and the matter that produces the meteor showers doesn’t survive the trip through the atmosphere.
• Microscopic particles have been collected at high altitudes with aircraft and rockets. Composition is similar to C1 carbonaceous chondrites (is this a surprise?).
• A spacecraft (
Stardust ) has returned to Earth dust samples collected from the coma of comet Wild 2.
17

• Short period comet (76 years)
• Visited by several non-US spacecraft in 1986-86
• Will next return in 2062
Image taken by Giotto during its closest approach
Note the dark surface, and the jets of bright material coming off as the
Sun heats the volatiles.
These jets of gas can perturb the orbit of the comet and make exact prediction of its orbit difficult.
5km
19

• The nucleus is irregularly shaped, 15 x 7 to 10 km.
The color is dark, fairly neutral, gray.
Its reflectivity is only 4%. Similar to black, volatile rich, carbonaceous asteroids beyond the outer asteroid belt.
• Its composition (by number of molecules) is mainly ice: water ice 80% carbon monoxide 10% carbon dioxide 3.5% organic compounds 1-2%
• D/H ratio has been used to infer that most of
Earth’s oceans not provided by comets
• It rotates slowly, period of several days, and it exhibits nodding or nutational motions. 20

Comet S-L 9 breaking up into fragments
Comets are apparently quite weak – perhaps more like an icy rubble pile than a snowball?
23

1km
• Spectral features (H2O,C-H, CO2) seen
• Impact crater not seen
• Follow-on mission?

• Two kinds of comets
– Short period (<200 yrs) and long period (>200 yrs)
– Different orbital characteristics: ecliptic
Short period: prograde, low inclination
Long period: isotropic orbital distribution
• This distribution allows us to infer the orbital characteristics of the source bodies:
– S.P. – relatively close (~50 AU), low inclination (
Kuiper Belt )
– L.P. – further away (~10 4 AU), isotropic ( Oort Cloud )

• Period < 200 yrs. Mostly close to the ecliptic plane (Jupiter-family or ecliptic, e.g. Encke); some much higher inclinations (e.g.
Halley)
• Most are thought to come from the Kuiper Belt , due to collisions or planetary perturbations
• Form the dominant source of impacts in the outer solar system
• Is there a shortage of small comets/KBOs? Why?
From Weissmann, New Solar System

• ~800 objects known so far, occupying space between Neptune
(30 AU) and ~50 AU
Scattered
Disk Objects
• Largest objects are Pluto, Charon,
Quaoar (1250km diameter), 2004
DW ( how do we measure their size?)
“hot”
“cold”
• Two populations – low eccentricity, low inclination (“cold”) and high eccentricity, high inclination (“hot”)
• Total mass small, ~0.1 Earth masses
Brown, Phys. Today 2004
• Difficult to form bodies as large as 1000 km when so little total mass is available (see next slide)
• A surprisingly large number (few percent) binaries
• See Mike Brown’s article in Physics Today Apr. 2004 and
Alessandro Morbidelli’s review in Science Dec. 2004

From Stern A.J.
1996
• Planetesimal growth is slower in outer solar system ( why?)
• Calculations suggests that it is not possible to grow
~1000km size objects in the Kuiper belt with
Solar system age current mass distribution
Disk mass (M
E
)
• How might we avoid this paradox (see next slide)?
– 1) Kuiper Belt originally closer to Sun
– 2) We are not seeing the primordial K.B.
Different lines are for different mean random eccentricities

Early in solar system
Ejected planetesimals (Oort cloud/Scattered
Disk Objects)
“Hot” population
J
Present day
S U N
18 AU
Initial edge of planetesimal swarm
30 AU 48 AU
“Hot” population
Planetesimals transiently pushed out by Neptune 2:1 resonance
“Cold” population
J S U N
Neptune stops at
3:2 Neptune original edge resonance
(Pluto)
See Gomes, Icarus 2003 and Levison & Morbidelli Nature 2003
2:1 Neptune resonance

• Two populations (“hot” and “cold”)
– Transported by different mechanisms (scattering vs. resonance with Neptune)
• “ Cold” objects are red and (?) smaller; “hot” objects are grey and (?) larger
– Hot population formed (or migrated) closer to Sun
• Formation and (current) position of Neptune
– Easier to form it closer in; current position determined by edge of initial planetesimal swarm ( why should it have an edge?)
• Small present-day total mass of Kuiper Belt for the size of objects seen there
– It was initially empty – planetesimals were transported outwards
• Any interesting consequences for the inner solar system?

• A few percent KBO’s are binaries, mostly not tightly bound (separation >10 2 radii) – Pluto/Charon an exception. Why are binaries useful?
• Pluto has two extra satellites
(Weaver et al., Nature 2006)
• How did these binaries form?
• Collisions not a good explanation – low probability, and orbits end up tightly bound (e.g. Earth/Moon)
• A more likely explanation is close passage (<~1 Hill sphere), with orbital energy subsequently reduced by interaction with swarm of smaller bodies (Goldreich et al. Nature 2002).
Implies that most binaries are ancient
(close passage more probable)
• Any interesting consequences of capture?

• Periods > 200 yrs (most only seen once) e.g. Hale-Bopp
• Source is the Oort Cloud, perturbations due to nearby stars (one star passes within 3 L.Y. every ~10 5 years).
Such passages also randomize the inclination/eccentricity
• Distances are ~10 4 A.U. and greater
• Maybe 10-10 2 Earth masses
• Sourced from originally scattered planetesimals
• Objects closer than 20,000 AU are bound tightly to the
Sun and are not perturbed by passing stars
• Periodicity in extinctions(?)

• What happens to all the planetesimals scattered out by
Jupiter? They end up in the Oort cloud (close-in versions are called Scattered Disk Objects)
• This is a spherical array of planetesimals at distances out to ~200,000 AU (=3 LY), with a total mass of 10-
10 2 Earths
• Why spherical? Combination of initial random scattering from Jupiter, plus passages from nearby stars
• Forms the reservoir for long period comets
Earth
1 AU
After Stern, Nature 2003
Saturn
Pluto
10 AU
Oort cloud
(spherical after ~5000 AU)
Kuiper Belt
100 AU 1,000 AU 10,000 AU 100,000 AU

• Sedna discovered in March 2004, most distant solar system object ever discovered
• a =480 AU, e =0.84, period 10,500 years
• Perihelion=76 AU so it is a scattered disk object (not a KBO)
• Radius ~ 1000 km (how do we know?)
• Light curve suggests a rotation rate of ~20 days (slow)
• This suggests the presence of a satellite (why?), but to date no satellite has been imaged (why not?)
• 2003 UB313 is another SDO which is interesting mainly because at ~3000 km it is bigger than Pluto (how do we know?) (Bertoldi et al. Nature 2006)

Plutinos Twotinos
SDO’s
Kuiper Belt

• Comets are dirty snowballs with a dark crust
• They provide samples of (hopefully) primordial, volatile-rich solar nebula material
• SP comets come from the Kuiper Belt
• LP comets come from the Oort Cloud
• The architecture of the Kuiper Belt is probably a result of Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune moving around early in their history!

• NO LECTURE this Weds
• Revision lecture on Friday – bring questions
• NO LECTURE next Monday
• Final 8am next Weds