Orbit
Chiron's orbit was found to be highly eccentric (0.37), with perihelion just inside the orbit of Saturn and aphelion just outside the perihelion of Uranus (it does not reach the average distance of Uranus, however). According to the program Solex, Chiron's closest approach to Saturn in modern times was in May 720, at just under 30 million kilometres. During this passage Saturn's gravity caused Chiron's semi-major axis to decrease from 14.4AU to 13.7AU. It does not come nearly as close to Uranus; Chiron crosses Uranus' orbit where the latter is farther than average from the Sun. It attracted considerable interest because it was the first object discovered in such an orbit, well outside the asteroid belt. Chiron is classified as a centaur, the first of a class of objects orbiting between the outer planets. Chiron is an SU object since its perihelion lies within Saturn's zone of control and its aphelion lies within Uranus' zone of control. Centaurs are not in stable orbits and over millions of years will eventually be removed by gravitational perturbation by the giant planets, moving to different orbits or leaving the Solar System altogether. Chiron is probably a refugee from the Kuiper belt and will probably become a short-period comet in about a million years.
Chiron came to perihelion (closest point to the Sun) in 1996.
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The orbit of 2060 Chiron compared with the orbits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. |
The chaotic unstable motion of Chiron as simulated by Gravity Simulator. It is possible that Chiron will evolve into a 2:1 near resonance with Saturn over the next 10,000+ years. |
Read more about this topic: 2060 Chiron
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