Trinculo (moon)

Matthew J. Holman, John J. Kavelaars, Dan Milisavljevic, Brett J. Gladman

Trinculo (also Uranus XXI) is the twenty-second of the 27 known and the fourth of the outer retrograde irregular moons of the planet Uranus. He is one of the smallest if not the smallest of the natural satellite of the planet.

Discovery and designation

Trinculo was discovered on 13 August 2001 by a team of astronomers Matthew J. Holman, John J. Kavelaars, and Dan Milisavljevic. The recordings were made by the 4.0 -meter Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter- American Observatory in Chile. He was the first moon of Uranus, which was discovered in the 21st century. Soon after the shooting, on which also Francisco, Ferdinand and Margaret actually were seen, lost astronomers unfortunately again the track of the moon. Since the orbit therefore could not be saved, the International Astronomical Union decided not to publish the discovery. It was Brett J. Gladman, the Trinculo tracked recordings on September 5, 2002 of the Paranal Observatory in Chile again. Matthew Holman and Tommy Grav confirmed then the rediscovery by shooting at CTIO of 13 August 2002 The discovery was announced on 30 September 2002.; the moon first received the provisional designation S/2001 U 1

On 8 August 2003, the Moon has then received the official name Trinculo, like all irregular moons of Uranus except Margaret, after a figure in William Shakespeare's The Tempest. Trinculo is a drunken fool with Caliban and Stephano plans initially to kill the magician Prospero, Trinculo but remembers it later, just someone to join, in which he can be his own master.

So far, all the moons of Uranus are named after characters from Shakespeare or Alexander Pope. The first four moons discovered Uranus ( Oberon, Titania, Ariel, Umbriel ) were proposed by John Herschel, the son of Uranus discoverer William Herschel, named. Later, the tradition of naming was retained.

The provisional designation S/2001 U 1 corresponds to the classification of the International Astronomical Union ( IAU).

Web properties

Trinculo Uranus rotates on a retrograde irregular moon for a relatively slightly elliptical orbit 6650240-10352280 km from its center ( Large semi-major axis 8.50126 million kilometers or 332.613 Uranus radii ), or about 8.4757 million kilometers above the cloud tops. The orbital eccentricity of 0.2177350, the orbit is inclined 166.25279 ° to the ecliptic. Trinculo is about 14 times as far from Uranus as the outermost regular moon Oberon.

Due to the large distance to Uranus and gravitational disturbances caused by the sun and other factors, the orbital parameters are thus possibly variable; the moon could perhaps get ( back ) into a heliocentric orbit. The eccentricity is therefore 0.2079 to 0.2200, the orbital inclination ( with respect to the ecliptic ) between 166.971 ° and 167.05 ° and the Great semi-major axis between 8,002 und 8.505 million kilometers indicated. The orbit of Trinculo is relatively circular for an irregular moon.

Trinculo is a member of Caliban group, a subgroup of the irregular moons with moderate eccentricity and high orbital inclinations of 140 to 170 °, which also includes Francisco, Caliban and Stephano belong. Within this group, the only Trinculo falls but the higher by about 20 ° orbital inclination, and thus constitutes its own dynamic group

The orbit of the next inner moon Stephano is on average from about 800,000 km from Trinculos orbit, the distance of the path of the next outer moon Sycorax averages about 3,670,000 km.

Trinculo orbits Uranus in around 748 days 19 hours and 55 minutes or about 2,050 Earth years. The orbital period is also specified with 749.24 and 749.40 days. Trinculo requires almost exactly as long as the planet Mars around the Sun to orbit Uranus.

Physical Properties

Trinculo has a diameter estimated at 18 km ( according to other sources 10 km), based on the assumed for him albedo of 4 %, which may be as well as 7%. The surface is thus in any case very dark. Trinculo is most likely the smallest known Uranus moon, its size could be offered at most of the 2003 discovered Cupid. He is certainly the faintest moon throughout the Uranus system. Trinculos density is estimated to be between 1.3 and 1.5 g/cm3. So the moon is likely to be composed predominantly of water ice and silicate rock. On its surface, the gravitational acceleration is 0.0021 m/s2, this corresponds to about 2 ‰ of the earth. Trinculo appear in the spectrum in gray.

Formation

It is believed that Trinculo is a captured Kuiper belt object and is not in the accretion disk that formed the Uranus system, created. It is conceivable that the moon of a Kuiper Belt object first became a centaur and was subsequently captured by Uranus. The exact trapping mechanism is not known, but the entrapment of a moon requires the dissipation of energy. The hypotheses range from withdrawal of gas from the protoplanetary disk, interactions within the framework of the multi- body problem and capture by the strongly growing mass of Uranus.

Research

Due to the large distance to Uranus and weak brightness of 25.4 like the 1:91200000 is opposite to the central planet, Trinculo was 2 1986 not found during flyby of the Voyager spacecraft. Since the first discovery in 2001 and the rediscovery in 2002 Trinculo could only be observed by ground-based telescopes, while its orbital elements and its brightness can be determined.

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