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A Dwarf Planet Class Object in the 21:5 Resonance with Neptune

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A Dwarf Planet Class Object in the 21:5 Resonance with Neptune A dwarf planet class object in the 21:5 resonance with Neptune Holman, M. J., Payne, M. J., Fraser, W., Lacerda, P., Bannister, M. T., Lackner, M., Chen, Y. T., Lin, H. W., Smith, K. W., Kokotanekova, R., Young, D., Chambers, K., Chastel, S., Denneau, L., Fitzsimmons, A., Flewelling, H., Grav, T., Huber, M., Induni, N., ... Weryk, R. (2018). A dwarf planet class object in the 21:5 resonance with Neptune. Astrophysical Journal Letters, 855(1), [L6]. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aaadb3 Published in: Astrophysical Journal Letters Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Queen's University Belfast - Research Portal: Link to publication record in Queen's University Belfast Research Portal Publisher rights © 2018 American Astronomical Society. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher. General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Queen's University Belfast Research Portal is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The Research Portal is Queen's institutional repository that provides access to Queen's research output. Every effort has been made to ensure that content in the Research Portal does not infringe any person's rights, or applicable UK laws. If you discover content in the Research Portal that you believe breaches copyright or violates any law, please contact [email protected]. Download date:28. Sep. 2021 The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 855:L6 (9pp), 2018 March 1 https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aaadb3 © 2018. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. A Dwarf Planet Class Object in the 21:5 Resonance with Neptune Matthew J. Holman1 , Matthew J. Payne1 , Wesley Fraser2 , Pedro Lacerda2 , Michele T. Bannister2 , Michael Lackner3, Ying-Tung Chen (陳英同)4 , Hsing Wen Lin (林省文)5,6 , Kenneth W. Smith2, Rosita Kokotanekova7 , David Young2 , K. Chambers8 , S. Chastel8, L. Denneau8, A. Fitzsimmons2 , H. Flewelling8 , Tommy Grav9 , M. Huber8 , Nick Induni1, Rolf-Peter Kudritzki8, Alex Krolewski1 , R. Jedicke8 , N. Kaiser8 , E. Lilly8, E. Magnier8 , Zachary Mark1, K. J. Meech8, M. Micheli8 , Daniel Murray10, Alex Parker11 , Pavlos Protopapas3, Darin Ragozzine12 , Peter Veres1 , R. Wainscoat8 , C. Waters8 , and R. Weryk8 1 Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, MS 51, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; [email protected] 2 Astrophysics Research Centre, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queenʼs University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK 3 Institute for Applied Computational Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA 4 Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, 11F of AS/NTU Astronomy-Mathematics Building, No. 1 Roosevelt Road, Sec. 4, Taipei 10617, Taiwan 5 Institute of Astronomy, National Central University, Taoyuan 32001, Taiwan 6 Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA 7 Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Justus-von-Liebig-Weg 3, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany 8 Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA 9 Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA 10 Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53211, USA 11 Southwest Research Institute, Department of Space Studies, Boulder, CO 80302, USA 12 Brigham Young University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Provo, UT 84602, USA Received 2017 September 12; revised 2018 January 12; accepted 2018 February 3; published 2018 February 28 Abstract We report the discovery of an Hr=3.4±0.1 dwarf planet candidate by the Pan-STARRS Outer Solar System Survey. 2010JO179 is red with (g − r)=0.88±0.21, roughly round, and slowly rotating, with a period of 30.6 hr. Estimates of its albedo imply a diameter of 600–900km. Observations sampling the span between 2005 and 2016 provide an exceptionally well determined orbit for 2010JO179, with a semimajor axis of 78.307± 0.009 au; distant orbits known to this precision are rare. We find that 2010JO179 librates securely within the 21:5 mean-motion resonance with Neptune on 100 Myr timescales, joining the small but growing set of known distant dwarf planets on metastable resonant orbits. These imply a substantial trans-Neptunian population that shifts between stability in high-order resonances, the detached population, and the eroding population of the scattering disk. Key words: Kuiper belt objects: individual (2010 JO179) 1. Introduction Sheppard et al. 2011; Rabinowitz et al. 2012; Sheppard & Trujillo 2016; Gerdes et al. 2017). Dwarf planets in the trans-Neptunian region are remnant As often the brightest and thus easiest to detect of the worlds planetesimals from the protoplanetary disk of the solar system. in the trans-Neptunian region, dwarf planets also provide a They constrain the large-diameter end of the trans-Neptunian useful broad-brush indication of the phase space of their object (TNO) size distribution, which is inferred from the dynamical populations. They are key to exploring the fainter, observed luminosity function (Brown 2008; Petit et al. 2008; ) large-semimajor-axis populations where the smaller TNOs are Schwamb et al. 2013; Fraser et al. 2014 . There is no simple ( ) size cut between dwarf planet and medium-sized TNO; whether too faint to detect; for example, the 2003 discovery of 90377 an object achieves ellipsoidal hydrostatic equilibrium is Sedna indicated a substantial population of TNOs with large / perihelion distances (Brown et al. 2004). The a50 au dependent on its internal ice rock fractional composition fi (Tancredi & Favre 2008; Lineweaver & Norman 2010). populations are all de ned by their degree of gravitational However, few suitably sizable worlds are yet known:13 33 interaction with Neptune: they include orbits librating in high- < order mean-motion resonance (MMR); the scattering disk, on with, as a loose guide, absolute magnitude HV 4. “ ” TNOs are faint due to their >30 au heliocentric distances, orbits actively interacting with Neptune; and the detached ( ) requiring discovery surveys by >1 m aperture wide-field TNOs, with perihelia q 37 au Gladman et al. 2008 . Recent optical telescopes. Past wide-area surveys have completed the discoveries include the 9:2 mean-motion resonant object 2015 = = ± ( inventory of bright TNOs to m ∼19.5 outside the galactic RR245 with Hr 3.6 and a 81.86 0.05 au Bannister r ) plane (Tombaugh 1961; Kowal 1989; Sheppard et al. 2000; et al. 2016a , the scattering disk TNO 2013 FY27 with = = ( ) Trujillo & Brown 2003; Moody 2004; Brown 2008; Brown HV 2.9 and a 59 au Sheppard & Trujillo 2016 , and the = = ± et al. 2015). Substantial areas of sky have been surveyed to detached TNO 2014 UZ224 with HV 3.5 and a 109 7au (Gerdes et al. 2017). mr∼21.5 and deeper (Larsen et al. 2001, 2007; Elliot et al. 2005; Schwamb et al. 2010; Petit et al. 2011, 2017; The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System 1 Survey (Pan-STARRS 1, hereafter PS1) is well suited to the 13 discovery of TNOs. PS1 is a 1.8 m telescope on Haleakela in http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/db_search: a 30, q 30, and HV4, as of 2018 February 21. Hawai’i, with a dedicated 0 258 pixel, 7 deg2 optical imager 1 The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 855:L6 (9pp), 2018 March 1 Holman et al. (Kaiser et al. 2010;Chambersetal.2016).ThePS13π survey from the Orbfit package of Bernstein & Khushalani 2000) to the (Magnier et al. 2013;Chambersetal.2016) repeatedly observed set of observations from those three tracklets, and a search is the sky north of decl. −30° using a Sloan-like filter system (Tonry carried out for additional tracklets along the sky plane trajectory et al. 2012), reaching typical single-exposure 5σ depths of defined by that orbit. As tracklets are found, the orbit is refined gP1=22.0, rP1=21.8, and iP1=21.5 (see Table11 of Chambers and the search continues, recursively. All of the different linking et al. 2016). PS1 also observed within ±20° of the ecliptic using possibilities are followed until the set of plausibly connected the wide wP1 filter (m5σ ∼ 22.5). The observing cadence of PS1 is tracklets is exhausted. As a final step, single detections that lie optimized for detection of inner solar system minor planets, with within 1 0 of the sky plane are searched for and incorporated, analysis for detection made with the PS Moving Object Processing with astrometric and photometric outliers rejected. System (MOPS; Denneau et al. 2013). However, PS1’smanyvisits We consider for further investigation any arc of tracklets permit detection of slower-moving (∼3″/hr) TNOs in the with detections on at least five separate nights that has an accumulated data. Weryk et al. (2016) reported several hundred orbital solution with a reduced chi-squared c¯ 2 3 and that has centaurs and TNOs from a search of the 2010 February 24 to 2015 a range of observation magnitudes that is physically realistic July 31 PS1 observations, which linked together detections within (Δmw < 1.5). All directions of motion of the resulting orbit are 60 day intervals. permitted and retained. The PS1 outer solar system (OSS) key project uses a novel linking solution, based on transforming topocentric observa- tions to a heliocentric coordinate frame using an assumed 3. Observations heliocentric distance. Our initial search of the 2010–2014 PS1 The observations of 2010JO179 span 12 oppositions. All observations resulted in hundreds of candidates, ∼50% of available photometry is tabulated in the Appendix (Table 3); which were newly discovered TNOs (Holman et al. 2015). the astrometry is listed at the Minor Planet Center.14 These include unusual objects such as the highly inclined We initially detected 2010JO in g-, r-, and i-band ( ) ( ) 179 centaur 471325 2011 KT19 Chen et al.
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