|
| | | | |
| | | |
| Stat |
Members: 3645
Articles: 2'504'928
Articles rated: 2609
25 April 2024 |
|
| | | | |
|
Article overview
| |
|
|
The Youthful Appearance of the 2003 EL61 Collisional Family | | David L. Rabinowitz
; Bradley E. Schaefer
; Martha W. Schaefer
; Suzanne W. Tourtellotte
; | | Date: |
17 Apr 2008 | | Abstract: | We present new solar phase curve observations of the 2003 EL61 collisional
family showing that all the members have light-scattering properties similar to
the bright icy satellites and dwarf planets. Compared to other Kuiper Belt
objects, the five family members we observe (2003 EL61, 2002 TX300, 2003 OP32,
2005 RR43, and 1995 SM55) have conspicuously neutral color (V-I = 0.6-0.8 mag)
and flat phase curves at small phase angles (phase coefficients of 0.0 - 0.1
mag deg-1). Comparing the phase curves we observe for other icy Kuiper Belt
objects to the phase curves of icy satellites, we find that the flat phase
curves of the 2003 EL61 family are an indication they have high albedo surfaces
coated with fresh ice in the last ~100 Myr. We examine possible resurfacing
processes and find none that are plausible. To avoid the influence of cosmic
radiation that darkens and reddens most icy surfaces on times scales > ~100
Myr, the family members must be unusually depleted in carbon, or else the
collision that created the family occurred so recently that the parent body and
fragments have not had time to darken. We also find a rotation period of 4.845
(+/- 0.003) h with amplitude 0.26 (+/- 0.04) mags for 2003 OP32. | | Source: | arXiv, 0804.2864 | | Services: | Forum | Review | PDF | Favorites | |
|
|
No review found.
Did you like this article?
Note: answers to reviews or questions about the article must be posted in the forum section.
Authors are not allowed to review their own article. They can use the forum section.
browser Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)
|
| |
|
|
|
|
News, job offers and information for researchers and scientists:
| |
REGISTER