Astronomers, please answer if you will please~ thanks?

Question

What is Chiron? Its orbit in cosmological terms is unstable. It got to where it is roughly 250 million years ago and will leave that orbit in about 100 million years. Chiron ended up in that orbit after a gravitational encounter with another planet. Astronomers are still debating about what kind of body Chiron is. There are (3) theories could you please explain, these theroires, to me? I just want the (3) please which is the lastest.
thanks so much~ April

(1) A burned-out comet.
(2)An asteroid pulled "off course".
(3)A planetoid or escaped moon.
this was what I was looking for. However, You al l did great! thanks

please excuse my missed typos, my keys in my settings, have to be reset!

Answer 1

I found 2 more links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2060_Chiron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiron_%28hypothetical_moon%29
Hope this information to be useful.

Answer 2

There are not really theories, but here are some scientific facts on Chiron.

Chiron, which may be an asteroid or a comet, is 112 miles(180 km) across, and is surrounded by a coma of dust and gas. Chiron is a member of the Centaurs, and it is believed to have been captured from the Kuiper Belt. Chiron's orbit takes 50.7 years, and stretches from inside Saturn's orbit, to outside Neptune's orbit..

Answer 3

Chiron has multiple classifications. It is the first named object of the type centaur which are small bodies whose orbits are located between Saturn and Uranus. It was initially classified as an asteroid. Later, it was disputed that it should be a comet. It now carries an official designation of both asteroid and comet. It's catalog number indicates that status: 95P/Chiron.

So technically it is a centaur, an asteroid and a comet.

Answer 4

Chiron is a centaur...which I know very little about. Apparently they're rocky/icey bodies existing in orbits around the sun between Jupiter and Neptune (thus not within either the Kuiper or Asteroid belts an not classifiable as such). Also, they apparently have the properties of both asteroids and comets, and are classified as both.

Answer 5

I'm sure you need this answer for school, so my answer might not help you much.

Sometimes we simply dont have one definition that fits a certain body. I know it's hard for people to accept, but that's the way it is. Scientists also debate over whether a virus is alive or not. Why can't we just agree that maybe it's a 3rd category?
If a celestial body is sometimes a comet, but as big as a planet, and smells like a centaur.... maybe it just needs a new word?

Answer 6

All I could find is it may have been an asteroid or comet and it now has an unstable orbit between saturn and uranus

Answer 7

060 Chiron (pronounced /ˈkaɪrən/ kye'-rən, from Greek: Χείρων) is a planetoid in the outer solar system. Discovered in 1977 by Charles T. Kowal (precovery images have been found as far back as 1895),[4] it was the first known member of a new class of objects now known as centaurs, with an orbit between those of Saturn and Uranus.

Although it was initially classified as an asteroid, later dispute arose as to whether it was an asteroid or actually a comet. Today it is classified as both, and accordingly it is also known by the cometary designation 95P/Chiron.

Chiron is named after the centaur Chiron in Greek mythology. It should not be confused with the largest moon of Pluto named Charon, discovered in 1978.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Orbit
* 2 Physical characteristics
* 3 References
* 4 External links

[edit] Orbit

Chiron's orbit was found to be highly eccentric, with perihelion just inside the orbit of Saturn and aphelion just inside the orbit of Uranus (thus, it crosses Saturn's orbit, but not that of Uranus). It attracted considerable interest because it was the first object discovered in such an orbit, well outside the asteroid belt. Chiron is now classified as a centaur, the first of a class of objects orbiting between the outer planets. Centaurs are not in stable orbits and will eventually be removed by gravitational perturbation by the giant planets, moving to different orbits or leaving the solar system altogether.

It has been calculated that in 1664 BC[5] Chiron approached Saturn to within approximately 16 million kilometres; only 3 million km further away than Saturn's largest outer moon Phoebe, and within the orbital radii of many of Saturn's newly discovered minor satellites. Chiron is probably a refugee from the Kuiper belt.

[edit] Physical characteristics

In 1988 it was found that Chiron was undergoing an outburst in brightness (by about one magnitude), which is behaviour typical of comets but not asteroids. Further observations in 1989 showed that Chiron had developed a cometary coma. At the time of its discovery, Chiron was close to aphelion, whereas the observations showing a coma were done closer to perihelion, perhaps explaining why no cometary behavior had been seen earlier.

Chiron is officially designated as both a comet and an asteroid, an indication of the sometimes fuzzy dividing line between the two classes of object. The term proto-comet has also been used. At approximately 180km across, it is unusually large for a comet nucleus.

Since the discovery of Chiron, quite a few other centaurs have been discovered, and nearly all are currently classified as asteroids but are being observed for possible cometary behavior. As of March 2006, only one has been observed to have a cometary coma: 60558 Echeclus, which now also has the cometary designation 174P/Echeclus.

There are also three other non-centaur asteroids that are also classified as comets: 4015 Wilson-Harrington, 7968 Elst-Pizarro, and 118401 LINEAR. The centaur 60558 Echeclus is also cross-listed as comet 174P/Echeclus.


[edit] References

1. ^ a b Groussin (01/2004). Properties of the nuclei of Centaurs Chiron and Chariklo. Astronomy and Astrophysics, v.413, p.1163-1175 (2004). Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
2. ^ JPL Small-Body Database. Retrieved on 2007-01-11.
3. ^ Meech, Karen (19-FEB-1994). THE STRUCTURE OF THE INNER COMA OF COMET CHIRON: IMAGING THE EXOPAUSE. INSTITUTE FOR ASTRONOMY, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII. Retrieved on 2007-10-19.
4. ^ Grayzeck, Ed (2003-12-11). The Chiron Perihelion Campaign. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
5. ^ Kowal (1979 pages= 249). "The discovery and orbit of /2060/ Chiron" (PDF). In: Dynamics of the solar system; Proceedings of the Symposium, Tokyo, Japan, May 23-26, 1978. (A79-36276 15-89) Dordrecht, D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1979, p. 245-250..

* Luu JX, Jewitt DC, Trujillo C. (2000). "Water Ice in 2060 Chiron and Its Implications for Centaurs and Kuiper Belt Objects". Astrophysical Journal 531 (2): L151-L154. PMID 10688775. Preprint on arXiv.
* Fernandez Y.R., Jewitt DC, Sheppard S (2002). "Thermal Properties of Centaurs Asbolus and Chiron". Astrophysical Journal 123: 1050–1055. Preprint on arXiv.
* Patrick Moore Guinness book of Astronomy ISBN 0-85112-375-9


[edit] External links

* Orbital simulation from JPL (Java) / Ephemeris


Minor planets
(see full list)
Previous minor planet 2060 Chiron Next minor planet
Comets
Previous periodic comet 95P/Chiron Next periodic comet
List of periodic comets
[hide]
v • d • e
Small Solar System bodies
Vulcanoids · Near-Earth asteroids · Main belt · Jupiter Trojans · Centaurs · Damocloids · Neptune Trojans · Comets · Trans-Neptunians (Kuiper belt • Scattered disc objects • Oort cloud)
For other objects and regions, see Asteroid groups and families, Binary asteroids, Asteroid moons, meteoroids and the Solar System.
For a complete listing, see List of asteroids. See also Pronunciation of asteroid names and Meanings of asteroid names.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2060_Chiron"

Categories: Temp test category for InfoboxPlanet | Temp category InfoboxPlanet-magnitude | Centaurs (minor planets) | Comets
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