The extreme Kuiper Belt binary 2001 QW322

Details The extreme Kuiper Belt binary 2001 QW322 The extreme Kuiper Belt binary 2001 QW322

Jan 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....40.4711p&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #47.11; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.562

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Scientific paper

We report on the mutual-orbit determination of 2001 QW322, a Kuiper Belt binary
with a very large separation whose properties challenge binary-formation and evolution theories. This binary was discovered in data acquired 24 August 2001 at CFHT by the Canada-France Ecliptic Plane Survey team. By 2003, the heliocentric orbit was established, yielding a relatively `normal' trans-neptunian object in the so-called `main' classical belt, with semimajor axis a=44 AU, eccentricity e=0.024, inclination i=4.8 deg, and at a distance of R=44 AU from the Sun. Six years of tracking indicate that the binary's mutual orbit period is 20--30 years, that the orbit pole is retrograde and inclined 50--62 deg from the ecliptic plane, and, most surprisingly, that the mutual orbital eccentricity is less than 0.4. The semimajor axis of 105,000--135,000 km is 10 times that of other near-equal mass binaries. High-precision photometric observations from 8-m class telescopes show that the relative magnitudes of the two components are essentially the same in all measured colors, implying equla albedos. The relative magnitude (North - SOuth component) is -0.03 +/- 0.02, for a magnitude in R of 23.7. Thus the radius of each component is 54 km, assuming an albedo of 16%. The color of 2001 QW322 is on the blue extreme of the color distribution of the cold classical Kuiper belt or the Kuiper Belt core. Because this weakly bound binary is prone to orbital disruption by interlopers, its lifetime in its present state is likely less than 1 Gy. Either 2001 QW322 was created with its current mutual-orbit early in the history of the Solar System, in which case it is one of the few survivors of a population at least 50-100 times larger. Or this is a transitory object, evolving from a population of more tightly bound binaries.

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