The Orbit, Mass, Size, Albedo, and Density of the Binary Centaur (65489) 2003 FX128

Details The Orbit, Mass, Size, Albedo, and Density of the Binary Centaur (65489) 2003 FX128 The Orbit, Mass, Size, Albedo, and Density of the Binary Centaur (65489) 2003 FX128

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.4008g&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #40.08; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.557

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Scientific paper

The heliocentric orbit of Centaur object (65489) 2003 FX128 has a high eccentricity and crosses the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. This orbit is unstable, suggesting the object was perturbed relatively recently from an orbit in the Kuiper belt and has experienced close encounters along the way with one or more giant planets. Hubble Space Telescope visual images in 2006 April and May show it to be a tight binary system with a secondary component about 0.6 mag fainter than the primary, making it the second binary Centaur to be discovered after 2002 CR46. Their mutual orbit has a period of 9.554±0.011 days and a semimajor axis of 1842±46; km, enabling us to compute the system mass as 5.42±0.42 x 1018 kg. Spitzer Space Telescope thermal infrared observations were executed in 2006 July, and the data will soon be returned to Earth. These data will constrain the size and albedo, and, in combination with the mass from the satellite's orbit, the bulk density of (65489) 2003 FX128. The physical properties of (65489) 2003 FX128 revealed by Hubble and Spitzer observations will be described and compared with recent findings for other trans-neptunian objects and Centaurs. We will also discuss the implications of the circular nature of the satellite's orbit (the upper limit on its eccentricity is 0.015).

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