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Orcus

90482 Orcus, 2004 DW

Potential dwarf planet of the Solar System

Proper NameOrcus
Minor Planet Designation90482 Orcus
Provisional Designation2004 DW
Orbital Period245 years, 70 days
89,557 days
Distance from the SunSemi-Major Axis: 5,890,695,000 km (39.38 AU)
Perihelion: 4,591,655,000 km (30.69 AU)
Aphelion: 7,189,735,000 km (48.06 AU)
Eccentricity0.2205
Rotation PeriodNot known
Diameter910 km
MoonsVanth
Parent starThe Sun, yellow dwarf
Other planets in this systemMercury, terrestrial planet
Venus, terrestrial planet
Earth, terrestrial planet
Mars, terrestrial planet
Jupiter, gas giant
Saturn, gas giant
Uranus, ice giant
Neptune, ice giant
Numerous dwarf planets, asteroids and other bodies

A distant object belonging to the class known as plutinos, bodies the follow orbits of the kind typified by Pluto. Like Pluto, Orcus follows an eccentric orbital path around the Sun that carries it well outside the plane of the Solar System, and (also like Pluto) it completes each orbit in just under 250 years (specifically 245 years, compared with 247 for Pluto). The angle of its orbit relative to the Sun is quite different from Pluto's, however, and the two dwarf planets do not approach either closely.

Orcus is presently close to its aphelion, the farthest point in its orbit from the Sun. From that point, which it passed in the year 2019, its path will carry it on its long journey back inward through the Solar System. Like Pluto, at its closest point it will spend some years slightly closer to the Sun than the planet Neptune.

Estimates of Orcus' size vary slightly, but it has a diameter of about eight hundred kilometres, making it considerably smaller than Pluto. Unusually for a body of this kind, much of its surface is covered with crystalline water ice, presumably due to the action of cryovolcanoes expelling frozen water onto its surface. It has a single known satellite, Vanth, which approaches half the diameter of Orcus (or perhaps even exceeds it - the sizes of these two bodies are not known exactly). The names of Orcus and its moon Vanth both come from Etruscan mythology, where they belonged to a god and goddess of the underworld.

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