Spectroscopic Analyses Of The Bright TNOs 2003 UB313 And 2003 EL61

Details Spectroscopic Analyses Of The Bright TNOs 2003 UB313 And 2003 EL61 Spectroscopic Analyses Of The Bright TNOs 2003 UB313 And 2003 EL61

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.4002m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #40.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.556

Physics

Optics

Scientific paper

Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) are remnants bodies of the solar system formation and are probably composed of the most pristine materials. Most of them are very faint due to their large distances, small albedo and relative small size. However three big objects have been recently discovered.
We have used SINFONI, the new Adaptive Optics (AO) assisted spectro-imaging instrument at ESO-VLT (Cerro Paranal, Chile), to obtain H+K-band reflectance spectra of the surface of two of them: 2003 UB313, the biggest object observed until now, larger than Pluto, and 2003 EL61, whose size is the half of that of Pluto. These two objects show clear evidence of large amount of ices on their surface, mostly methane ice for 2003 UB313 and crystalline water ice for 2003 EL61.
To investigate more precisely the surface composition of these two bodies, we analysed their complete visible and near-infrared spectra using different radiative transfer models, based on the Hapke bidirectionnal theory and on the Shkuratov method.
Both models fit the surface composition with the presence of nitrogen on the surface of 2003 UB313, as on Pluto and Triton. The models are consistent with the presence of a thick and compact layer of methane on the surface. The complete analysis of these data will be presented and discussed.

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