Determining the Radii of Sixteen Transneptunian Bodies Through Thermal Modeling

Details Determining the Radii of Sixteen Transneptunian Bodies Through Thermal Modeling Determining the Radii of Sixteen Transneptunian Bodies Through Thermal Modeling

Oct 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.5205b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #52.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.517

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Scientific paper

We will present an analysis of Spitzer Space Telescope observations with the MIPS 24mm and 70mm channels of thermal radiation from 15 Kuiper Belt Objects and one Neptune Trojan. Objects were chosen to explore differences between hot and cold classical KBOs. The observed fluxes, along with the absolute visual magnitude, are input into a program that finds the best fitting radius and albedo using a fast-rotator Standard Thermal Model (STM). We will discuss our extensive comparison of the STM to a rough surface thermophysical model (TPM) in order to estimate the error in radius caused by using the simpler STM. Using a wide range of thermal parameters, the fast-rotator STM more closely approximated the TPM than did the slow-rotator STM. For rotational periods on the order of hours, the radii determined by the fast STM were within 4% of the TPM radii and for a six day period (similar to Pluto) the radii were within 7%. Implementing the STM is advantageous since the specific thermal parameters of KBOs cannot be determined at this time and its computer run time is much faster than the TPM. Monte Carlo techniques have been employed to interpret observations with low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) on a case-by-case basis and to derive the overall error in radius. Once all objects were analyzed, we looked for trends in radius and albedo with other dynamical properties.
Spitzer Space Telescope is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under NASA contract 1407. This work was supported by NASA through JPL/Caltech Contract Number #1265877.

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