Kuiper Belt – an ESO Large Programme
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Exploring the Icy World of the Edgeworth- Kuiper Belt – An ESO Large Programme H. BOEHNHARDT (Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg, Germany) A. BARUCCI, A. DELSANTI, C. DE BERGH, A. DORESSOUNDIRAM, J. ROMON (Observatoire de Paris, Meudon, France) E. DOTTO (Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, Italy) G. TOZZI (Osservatorio Astronomico di Arcetri, Firenze, Italy) M. LAZZARIN, S. FOURNISIER (Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy) N. PEIXINHO (Observatorio Astronomico de Lisboa, Portugal, and Observatoire de Paris, Meudon, France) O. HAINAUT (European Southern Observatory, Santiago de Chile) J. DAVIES (Royal Observatory Edinburgh, Great Britain) P. ROUSSELOT (Observatoire de Besançon, France) L. BARRERA (Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta, Chile) K. BIRKLE (Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg, Germany) K. MEECH (University of Hawaii, Honolulu, USA) J. ORTIZ (Instituto de Astronomia de Andalucia, Granada, Spain) T. SEKIGUCHI, J.-I. WATANABE (National Astronomical Observatory, Mitaka-Tokyo, Japan) N. THOMAS (Max-Planck-Institut für Aeronomie, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany) R. WEST (European Southern Observatory, Garching, Germany) The Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt and Kuiper Belt is believed to represent the sical disk objects. Other TNOs were the Formation of the Solar most original remnant from the forma- captured in resonant orbits with System tion period of our planetary system. It Neptune forming the dynamical class of was in this region where within less ‘Plutinos’ (named after Pluto, the most The first object in the Edgeworth- than 20 million years some 4.6 billion prominent representative in the 3:2 res- Kuiper Belt was observed in 1930, years ago, icy planetesimals formed onance orbit). Gravitational scattering when Clyde Tombaugh discovered and grew to larger bodies, nowadays at Neptune has produced the class of Pluto at a distance of 43 AU (1AU = one observed as TNOs, Centaurs, short-pe- ‘Scattered Disk Objects (SDOs)’ in very astronomical unit, the mean distance riod comets and some icy satellites of eccentric orbits with semi-major axes between Earth and the Sun = 149.6 mil- the major planets. Although of the same between 50 and several 1000 AUs. The lion km), i.e. beyond the orbit of origin and most likely containing the ‘Centaurs’, presently in orbits between Neptune. About 20 years later Edge- same primordial material, these small Neptune and Jupiter and named after worth and Kuiper started to speculate bodies, as we observe them now, have half-human-half-horse demigods in about the existence of another asteroid experienced different evolution over the Greek mythology, are also considered belt at the edge of the planetary sys- age of the solar system, both dynami- to be scattered TNOs, cascading to- tem. Another 30 years later this specu- cally and physically. Nevertheless, they wards the Sun by repeated gravitation- lation became an hypothesis when contain the most primordial material al interaction with the major planets. At Fernandez and Ip argued for the exis- from the formation of the Sun and its the end, i.e. typically after some 10 mil- tence of an Ecliptic-oriented reservoir planetary system that we can observe lion years in intermediate orbits, Jupiter of icy bodies beyond Neptune as a today. will either capture them as short-period source for short-period comets, the re- comets (thus, some of them even be- cruitment of which was difficult to ex- The Global View of the come accessible for spacecraft explo- plain by gravitational capturing of Oort Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt and its ration) or will expel them into the region Cloud comets through planets when Population of Objects of the long-period Oort Cloud or even approaching the inner solar system. interstellar comets at the edge of the The hypothesis became reality in 1992, The dynamical ‘zoo’ of Cubewa- solar system. A few TNOs may get when, during a search campaign for nos, Plutinos, Centaurs and SDOs: stranded as satellites around the outer distant asteroids, Jewitt and Luu found According to current dynamical scenar- gas giants (the most prominent candi- 1992 QB1 (now numbered: 15760) at a ios, the TNO population remained in date is Triton, the largest moon of distance of 41 AU from the Sun. the region of its formation, the Edge- Neptune). In the meanwhile, after the detection worth-Kuiper Belt, over the age of the The original formation disk, more of more than 700 objects beyond the solar system. However, their orbits be- ‘Plutos’ and TNO binaries: The drop orbit of Neptune over the past decade, came perturbed by the presence of in the number of objects with semi-ma- a new class of solar system bodies has Neptune. The gravitational interaction jor axes larger than 50 AU may indicate been discovered. These Transnep- with this giant planet has ‘pumped’ ob- either a basic characteristic of the for- tunian Objects (TNOs) are the largest jects into so-called ‘excited’ (i.e. non- mation disk around our Sun (a ‘truncat- members of the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt. circular and/or inclined), but non-reso- ed’ disk?) or may just mark the chal- They have caused a complete revision nant orbits creating the dynamical class lenge to detect the ‘cold’ and very colli- of our knowledge and understanding of of ‘Cubewanos’ (named after the proto- mated formation disk of even smaller the outer solar system: the Edgeworth- type object 1992 QB1), also called clas- planetesimals that escaped the gravita- 22 Figure 1: Colour-colour diagrams of the first 28 objects observed within the Large Programme. The two panels show the B-V versus V-R (left) and R-I versus V-R (right) colours of the objects measured. The symbols are: filled circles = Cubewanos, filled triangles = Plutinos, open cir- cles = SDOs, open triangles = Centaurs. The colour of the Sun is indicated by the open star symbol. The lines indicate the direction of in- creasing reddening slopes from –10 (lower left end) to 70%/100 nm (upper right end) in steps of 10%/100 nm. The distribution of the meas- ured objects seems to be rather uniform in the typical reddening range. The shift of the objects below the line of constant reddening in the plots involving R-I colour is due to the spectral slope change of red objects towards the near-IR end of the visible spectrum. tional influence of the outermost plan- sion products to micron size dust that and their relatives seems to be reason- ets because of their large distance from the solar radiation pressure has re- ably well understood, just a very vague the Sun. The overall mass in the moved from the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt picture of their physical properties and Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt seems to be region. The existence of binary TNOs chemical constitution exists. The faint- very small (0.15 Earth masses) and (about 10 objects so far) supports the ness of the objects (the vast majority cannot explain the existence of large idea of a serious collision environment are fainter than 23 mag) makes them TNOs like Pluto/Charon or Varuna. in the belt during and possibly beyond difficult to observe even with the largest Instead modelling results suggest that the end of the formation period of plan- telescopes: the brightest representa- the original formation disk in the TNO etesimals. Ongoing search pro- tives (about 20 mag) require easily one region was much heavier (10–100 grammes using imaging surveys and full observing night at an 8-m VLT unit Earth masses), that it should have pro- high-resolution imaging techniques at telescope for a spectroscopic study of duced more Pluto-size bodies and that large telescopes world-wide try to solve decent signal-to-noise. most of its mass got lost by gravitation- these key questions on the Edgeworth- Despite their faintness, the observed al scattering at the large planets as well Kuiper Belt. TNOs and Centaurs are only the as by mutual collisions of TNOs and Physico-chemical properties: largest members of the belt population subsequent down-grinding of the colli- While the dynamical history of TNOs with diameter estimates ranging be- Figure 2: Photometric “reflectivity spectra” from BVRI magnitudes of TNOs and Centaurs. The three panels show the photometric “reflectivi- ty spectra” of the first 28 objects observed with our programme. The relative reflectivity per photometric band (normalized to unity for V band) is plotted versus central wavelength of the filters used. It is a measure of the intrinsic reddening of the objects since the slope of solar spec- trum is removed from the data. The broken lines indicate the numerical spectral gradient fits for the individual objects. These plots are very useful to check the consistency of the photometric data since “bad” measurements and intrinsic variability of the objects will result in notice- able deviations of the photometry from a “smooth” spectral slope in these “spectra”. If found, further investigations may be needed to clarify the nature of the scatter. 23 Figure 3: Spectral gradient histograms of the full sample of 96 objects in our analysis database. The histograms show the number of objects per spectral gradient interval for each dynamical class as given in the table at the bottom of the figure. The spectral gradi- ents are calculated from the BVRI photome- try of the objects. temporary dust coma seen around these objects. Surface evolution scenarios: The red colour of TNOs and Centaurs is usually attributed to the effects of sur- face aging and darkening due to high- energy radiation and ion bombardment. Blue surface colours could be produced by major collisions through deposits of fresh icy material from the body interior or from the impactor. The estimated tween 30 and 1200 km (assuming a low different researchers arrived at different time scale for both types of colour albedo of 4 per cent).