Pluto's continued existence owes much to the gravity of Jupiter and Neptune.
's orbit. That they never collide is a consequence of two properties of Pluto's orbit, known as azimuthal libration and latitude libration.
Azimuthal libration describes how, whenever Pluto crosses Neptune's orbit, it is always at least 90 degrees away from Neptune. Meanwhile, latitude libration ensures that when Pluto reaches its closest point to Neptune or the other giant planets, it is always high above them and the plane of theThe most amazing photos from NASA's New Horizons
Now planetary scientists Renu Malhotra of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona and Takashi Ito of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan have developed a greater understanding of why Pluto survives in this particular orbit. In computer simulations they found that Neptune, unsurprisingly, has the greatest influence on Pluto's azimuthal libration, a consequence of the two planets' 3:2 orbital resonance, which dictates that for every three times Neptune orbits the sun, Pluto orbits exactly twice. However, the simulations suggest that Neptune does not greatly influence Pluto's latitudinal libration.
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