see § List of discovered minor planets |
Brett James Gladman (born April 19, 1966) [2] [3] is a Canadian astronomer and a full professor at the University of British Columbia's Department of Physics and Astronomy in Vancouver, British Columbia. He holds the Canada Research Chair in planetary astronomy. [4] He does both theoretical work (large-scale numerical simulations of planetary dynamics) and observational optical astronomy (being a discoverer of many planetary moons and minor planets).
Gladman is best known for his work in dynamical astronomy in the Solar System. He has studied the transport of meteorites between planets, the delivery of meteoroids from the main asteroid belt, and the possibility of the transport of life via this mechanism, known as panspermia. He also studies planet formation, especially the puzzle of how the giant planets came to be.
He is discoverer or co-discoverer of many astronomical bodies in the Solar System, asteroids, Kuiper Belt comets, and many moons of the giant planets:
Gladman is a member of the Canada–France Ecliptic Plane Survey (CFEPS), and the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS) which has detected and tracked the world's largest sample of well-understood Kuiper belt comets, including unusual objects like 2004 XR190 ("Buffy") and 2008 KV42 ("Drac"), the first trans-Neptunian object on a retrograde orbit around the Sun.
Gladman was awarded the H. C. Urey Prize by the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society in 2002. The main-belt asteroid 7638 Gladman is named in his honor. [4] During 2008–2011 he served as member and chair of the Science Advisory Council of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. He was awarded a Killam Research Fellowship in 2015.
Partial listing only below; discoveries number in the many hundreds of asteroids and Kuiper Belt objects.
(44594) 1999 OX3 | 21 July 1999 | list [A] [B] [C] |
(49673) 1999 RA215 | 13 September 1999 | list [D] [E] |
(60620) 2000 FD8 | 27 March 2000 | list [A] [C] [B] |
(60621) 2000 FE8 | 27 March 2000 | list [A] [C] [B] |
(62608) 2000 SD332 | 23 September 2000 | list |
(82053) 2000 SZ370 | 23 September 2000 | list [A] |
(118698) 2000 OY51 | 28 July 2000 | list |
(182222) 2000 YU1 | 16 December 2000 | list [B] [F] |
(182223) 2000 YC2 | 17 December 2000 | list [B] [F] |
(182926) 2002 FU6 | 20 March 2002 | list [A] [G] |
(200198) 1999 RE216 | 2 September 1999 | list |
(385191) 1997 RT5 | 7 September 1997 | list [H] [J] |
(385533) 2004 QD29 | 19 August 2004 | list |
(418993) 2009 MS9 | 25 June 2009 | list [C] [A] |
(422472) 2014 SZ319 | 23 March 2001 | list |
(444025) 2004 HJ79 | 26 April 2004 | list |
(468422) 2000 FA8 | 27 March 2000 | list [A] [C] [B] |
(469610) 2004 HF79 | 24 April 2004 | list |
(506439) 2000 YB2 | 16 December 2000 | list [B] [F] |
Co-discovery made with: A J. J. Kavelaars B M. J. Holman C J.-M. Petit D D. Davis E C. Neese F T. Grav G A. Doressoundiram H P. Nicholson J J. A. Burns |
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The Kuiper belt is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 astronomical units (AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times as wide and 20–200 times as massive. Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of small bodies or remnants from when the Solar System formed. While many asteroids are composed primarily of rock and metal, most Kuiper belt objects are composed largely of frozen volatiles, such as methane, ammonia, and water. The Kuiper belt is home to most of the objects that astronomers generally accept as dwarf planets: Orcus, Pluto, Haumea, Quaoar, and Makemake. Some of the Solar System's moons, such as Neptune's Triton and Saturn's Phoebe, may have originated in the region.
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Skathi, also named Saturn XXVII and originally spelled Skadi, is a natural satellite of the planet Saturn. Skathi is one of Saturn's irregular moons, in its Norse group of satellites. It was discovered on September 23, 2000 by a team of astronomers led by Brett Gladman. The team announced their discovery on December 7, 2000, along with seven other satellites of Saturn. The moon was named after Skaði, a figure in Norse mythology, as part of an effort to diversify the largely Greek and Roman names of astronomical objects.
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Dr. Jane X. Luu is a Vietnamese American astronomer and defense systems engineer. She was awarded the Kavli Prize for 2012 "for discovering and characterizing the Kuiper Belt and its largest members, work that led to a major advance in the understanding of the history of our planetary system".
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2004 XR190, nicknamed Buffy, is a trans-Neptunian object, classified as both a scattered disc object and a detached object, located in the outermost region of the Solar System. It was first observed on 11 December 2004, by astronomers with the Canada–France Ecliptic Plane Survey at the Mauna Kea Observatories, Hawaii, United States. It is the largest known highly inclined (> 45°) object. With a perihelion of 51 AU, it belongs to a small and poorly understood group of very distant objects with moderate eccentricities.
7638 Gladman, provisional designation 1984 UX, is a stony background asteroid from the central region of the asteroid belt, approximately 5.8 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 26 October 1984, by American astronomer Edward Bowell at Lowell's Anderson Mesa Station near Flagstaff, Arizona. The S-type asteroid has a rotation period of 17.3 hours. It was named after Canadian astronomer Brett J. Gladman.
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(528219) 2008 KV42 (provisionally designated:2008 KV42, and nicknamed Drac) is a trans-Neptunian object and the first one with a retrograde orbit to be discovered. This retrograde motion with an orbital inclination of 103° suggests that it is the missing link between its source in the Hills cloud and Halley-type comets, thus providing further insight into the evolution of the outer Solar System. The object measures approximately 77 kilometers (48 miles) in diameter. With a semi-major axis of 42 AU, it takes about 269 years to complete an orbit around the Sun.
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