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The centaurs orbit generally inwards of the Kuiper belt and outside the Jupiter trojans. In planetary astronomy, a centaur is a small Solar System body that orbits the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune and crosses the orbits of one or more of the giant planets. Centaurs generally have unstable orbits because of this; almost all their orbits have ...
Mar 10, 2021 · Because Centaurs are affected by the planets’ gravity, their orbits are unstable — within a few million years, they are ejected or impact one of the planets.
Mar 27, 2024 · Centaurs have highly elliptical orbits that can take them from the inner solar system to the outer reaches beyond Neptune. Their orbits are often unstable due to gravitational perturbations from the giant planets, which can cause them to cross the orbits of other planets or even be ejected from the solar system entirely.
Oct 7, 2021 · This dual nature gave these weird objects their name: Seemingly half-asteroid and half-comet, they were dubbed “centaurs” after the half-human, half-horse creatures of Greek myths. More than a ...
Sep 15, 2021 · Centaurs are transitory objects; they start their lives as Kuiper Belt or Oort cloud objects in the outer Solar System, and through a variety of interactions are driven into orbits closer to the Sun. Once located between Neptune and Jupiter, their days are limited, and it is believed that interactions with these two giant worlds fling Centaurs into the inner Solar System within 10 million ...
COSMOS - The SAO Encyclopedia of Astronomy › C. Centaurs. Centaurs are icy planetesimals located between Jupiter and Neptune. They cross the orbits of one or more of the giant planets in their journey around the Sun, and interactions with these outer planets cause the orbits of Centaurs to be inherently unstable.
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Kuiper belt. small body. Centaur object, any of a population of small bodies, similar to asteroids in size but to comets in composition, that revolve around the Sun in the outer solar system, mainly between the orbits of Jupiter and Neptune. The first known member of the group, Chiron, was discovered in 1977, although its close affinity with ...
