NASA
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Pluto is now classified as a dwarf planet because, while large enough to be spherical, it is not large enough to exert dominance over its orbit and clean up the environment around its orbit.
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Nationalgeographic.co.id—This discovery essentially shows that while other planets often follow somewhat circular orbits around the Sun, however Pluto slightly more elliptical.
Orbit Pluto inclined 17 degrees to the plane of the ecliptic of our solar system. It takes 248 Earth years for Pluto to complete one orbit around the sun. It also shows that Pluto spends 20 years during each cycle orbiting closer to the Sun than Neptune.
It was surprising that even though they passed each other, they didn’t bump into each other. According to the researchers, it may be due to a condition of orbital resonance called motion-average resonance that keeps them from colliding with each other.
Pluto’s orbit has a stable 3:2 average motion resonance with Neptune. This basically means, that for every two orbits Pluto makes around the sun, Neptune makes three, which prevents a collision between them.
This research was conducted by Dr. Renu Malhotra, Louise Foucar Marshall Research Professor of Science at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL); and Takashi Itoan associate professor at the Chiba Institute of Technology’s Planetary Exploration Research Center (PERC) and the Japan National Astronomical Observatory’s (NAOJ) Center for Computational Astrophysics.
They describe the discovery and publish it in a journal PNAS on March 31, 2022 with the title Pluto near the edge of chao. In the paper they state, “We show that the orbital architecture of the giant planet lies in a narrow niche where Pluto-like orbits are practically stable on the giga-year timescale, while nearby are highly chaotic orbits.”
They highlight their investigation has found that Jupiter has a strong stabilizing effect on Pluto’s orbit, on the other hand, Uranus has a large destabilizing effect. They concluded by stating that overall, Pluto’s orbit is surprisingly close to the zone of intense chaos.
NASA
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This image of the solar system shows Pluto’s tilted orbit, which is also more elliptical than the planets.
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Many simulations of Pluto’s past and future orbits have uncovered surprising characteristics that prevent Pluto from colliding with Neptune. “This is a state of orbital resonance known as “mean-motion resonance,” says Dr. Malhotra told Universe Today, as reported Tech Explorist.
“These conditions ensure that when Pluto is at the same heliocentric distance as Neptune, its longitude is nearly 90 degrees from Neptune. Later, other peculiar properties of Pluto’s orbit were discovered: Pluto reaches perihelion at a location far above Neptune’s orbital plane; this is a different type of orbital resonance known as a ‘vZLK oscillation.’ This abbreviation refers to von Zeipel, Lidov, and Kozai, who studied this phenomenon as part of the ‘three-body problem.’” he explained.
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