Once Around the Centaurs

First identified in 1979 this curious class of solar system half-breeds may be important in understanding the origin of life!

[gregpieczka]

Again... THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORK AND PASSION!
YOU ARE AN AMAZING TEACHER!

[DenofLore]

Paul. Your channel has been found far too late into its existence by me. I’m eternally thankful and grateful for these and your work. You may not be getting views but the ones you do get are real people who probably listen to every one and the whole thing so you know we love these and appreciate and thankful for you. ❤🎉

[vhhawk]

All these years and now I finally have a grasp on the centaur objects. Great science.

[mikereid]

Thanks again for your work, I learned a lot about Centaurs today!

[stewart]

Fascinating, thank you.

Don’t know if you’re taking requests but I’d love a trip once around Deneb.

[arbodox]

Howdy! Glad to see you giving attention to the small bodies of the Solar System :D
A little nitpick regarding 1995 SN55 though.... it was never a centaur in the first place. 1995 SN55 (or shall I say 2014 OK394) is just a regular Kuiper belt object that doesn't cross the orbits of the giant planets. That orbit graphic is really misleading because it uses the outdated planet-crossing orbit of SN55, which we now know is incorrect thanks to the 2020 recovery.

The reason why SN55's orbit changed from a centaur to a KBO all comes down to recalculating its orbit with new observational data. Originally there were too few observations of SN55 (they only lasted for a couple months, not even close to tracking its full orbit), which meant that you couldn't calculate an accurate orbit---you can calculate many wildly different orbits that can fit the data, but not know which one is correct unless you collect more observations. So SN55 ended up lost because the inaccurately-calculated orbit did not give accurate predictions for its location. Fast forwarding to 2020, Deen and Ly noticed that SN55 was the same object as 2014 OK394 because the predicted locations of 2014 OK394 (which was already known to be a KBO with an accurate orbit) happened to exactly match SN55 during 1995. Merging 1995 SN55's observational data with that of 2014 OK394 shows that they fit perfectly. And with that, the rest is history.

[homerfj]

You probably know this but a geology channel tells me if the diameter of solar system body reaches 343 Kms it becomes spherical.

[matveyshishov]

Thanks, very interesting!
Why do tholins require being beyond the ice line? Or did I misunderstand this part?
I also really liked the part about orbits (bc I enjoy topology a lot), and I've always had this question - how come orbits are stable? Especially that resonance. What restores stability, why don't they dissipate? You made it sound like standing waves, with local wells? What makes oort cloud objects (like that crazy 100km comet which enters the Solar system in 2030) to be so unpredictable, or are they too locked on elliptical orbits?
Have you thought about looking into the evolution of P2/Encke? It's said to be unusual, as in - not clear how it's supposed to get into the resonance in the first place, so if we know how Centaurs locked into their resonance, can it be applied to that one too?

[NotKnafo]

i was certain that the red of mars is rust

[bjh]

80 years or so between the date it was first noted and it being recognised for what it is. The entire science of cosmology advances at this pace. New ideas advance one funeral at a time.