AsapSCIENCE vs The Planetary Society — Instagram Profil-Vergleich

We know more about planets around other stars than we do about the worlds beyond the orbit of Neptune in our own Solar System. The Kuiper belt, where Pluto resides, is the Solar System's great unknown. There are up to millions of unidentified objects, probably a dozen undiscovered Pluto-size worlds, and — maybe — a long-lost ninth planet. Take Haumea: an oblong dwarf planet with moons and rings that rotates once every four hours, faster than any other object of its size in the Solar System. Or 307261 Máni, which might have a mountain taller than Olympus Mons despite being nearly 10 times smaller than Mars. Some Kuiper belt worlds are even predicted to freeze out their entire atmospheres and then regain them as their orbits shift. We've barely scratched the surface of this space wilderness. But the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is about to change that.. fast. It's expected to discover around 35,000 new Kuiper belt objects and nearly increase the known population tenfold, with most discoveries coming in the first year or two. Learn more about the strange worlds of the Kuiper belt — and what Rubin is about to uncover in our March issue of The Planetary Report. 🔗 in bio. 1️⃣: Haumea with a ring (artist's rendering). 🎨: IAA-CSIC/UHU 2️⃣: Pluto in colorized infrared. 📸: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / ZLDoyle 3️⃣: The NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, atop Cerro Pachón in Chile. 📸: Hernan Stockebrand/NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory