28978 Ixion is a Kuiper belt object that was found on May 22, 2001. Ixion is a plutino (an object that has a 2:3 orbital resonance with Neptune) and could be a dwarf planet. Astronomers think that it has a diameter of about 800 km, which makes it the third biggest plutino. It is named after Ixion, a figure from Greek mythology. Before it was named Ixion, it had the provisional designation 2001 KX76.
References [change]
- ↑ Marc W. Buie (2007-07-12). "Orbit Fit and Astrometric record for 28978". SwRI (Space Science Department). http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~buie/kbo/astrom/28978.html. Retrieved 2008-09-29.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 28978 Ixion (2001 KX76)". 2007-07-12 last obs. http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=Ixion. Retrieved 2008-10-04.
- ↑ John Stansberry, Will Grundy, Mike Brown, Dale Cruikshank, John Spencer, David Trilling, Jean-Luc Margot (2007). "Physical Properties of Kuiper Belt and Centaur Objects: Constraints from Spitzer Space Telescope". University of Arizona, Lowell Observatory, California Institute of Technology, NASA Ames Research Center, Southwest Research Institute, Cornell University. http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0702538v2. Retrieved 2008-11-17.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Wm. Robert Johnston. "TNO/Centaur diameters and albedos". http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/astro/tnodiam.html.
- ↑ Using the 2007 Spitzer spherical radius of 325 km; volume of a sphere * an assumed density of 2 g/cm³ yields a mass (m=d*v) of 2.8E+20 kg
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