Talk:2060 Chiron

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The page says that it will eventually fall into one of the gas giants. Is enough known about its orbit to guess when this might happen and which gas giant might consume it? Inquiring minds want to know. KellyCoinGuy

Judging by the fact that it says it approached Saturn to within 16 million KM in 1664 and that's considered a big deal, it's probably safe to assume that if it's believed that it will fall into a gas giant it's because comets (asteroids) simply have a tendancy to do that eventually, and it you might expect it to happen some time in the next million years or so!   freshgavin TALK    04:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it is far more likely that a close giant planet flyby changes its orbit dramatically, possibly ejecting it from the Solar System altogether.--Jyril 16:15, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Cleanup 2 Astrology 3 wrong predictions 4 right predictions

[edit] Cleanup

Did a mojor reorginization of the article, with the new layout modeled on the article for 90482 Orcus. I'm intending to get this article fixed up, so it can be used as an example for repairing the current state of the centaur articles. shaggy 12:26, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Astrology

Is the astrology section sourced in the Guinness Book? If not, it needs to go completely. Captainktainer * Talk 09:18, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

The Astrology section should either be moved to Planets_in_astrology or removed completely. Other comparable scientific articles e.g. Pluto don't have an astrology section. --Mojoh81 10:38, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] wrong predictions

I checked the article's statement It has been calculated that in 1664 BC Chiron approached Saturn to within approximately 16 million kilometres... with SOLEX. The other was from the 3rd paragraph here There is no agreement about any of the approaches between the two sources. It's not so much that SOLEX 9.1 has 30 yr more recent orbital elements. The researchers had considered perturbations of the five outer planets only. Simulations by SOLEX show that removing just Venus or Mercury completely changes the list of close approach years. So I removed the statement. Saros136 (talk) 18:49, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] right predictions

Using SOLEX again, I checked to see what reliable close approach predictions can be made. SOLEX has a clone feature, for asteroids. It generates orbital elements for a number of fictitious asteroids, very similar to the first. How similar depends on the estimated uncertainty in the real elements. The only close Saturn-Chiron close passes all the clones made or will make are in May 720, at just under 30 Gm, October 3544, at 137 Gm, and January or February 4606-103 Gm. The predictions hold up if I remove the big three main belt asteroids (Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta) or Pluto(or all four), or if I add all of the biggest ones. Saros136 (talk) 13:29, 11 February 2008 (UTC)