Division of Icy Bodies into Groups Based on Surface Properties

Details Division of Icy Bodies into Groups Based on Surface Properties Division of Icy Bodies into Groups Based on Surface Properties

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.4704s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #47.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.482

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Scientific paper

We propose the division of the icy bodies in the outer Solar System into five groups based on their surface properties. This division can be equivalently made by three definitions involving: size/orbit/color; measured surface properties; the physical mechanisms that reprocess the surfaces. Our first group is the Small/Red bodies (including the red Centaurs, Kuiper Belt Objects, and Scattered Disk Objects) which are 1.5 mag. These surfaces all have albedo <16; percent, and have lost their volatile ices by Jeans escape with cosmic rays reddening the remaining ices. Our second group is the Small/Gray bodies (including the gray Centaurs, Scattered Disk Objects, and Trojans) which are <800; km in diameter and with B-R<1.5 mag. These surfaces all have very low albedo (<6; percent) because their surface ices have been lost due to heating by the Sun at some time in their past orbital history leaving only their original rocky material to cover the surface. Our third group is the Intermediate bodies (Quaoar, Orcus, and Charon) with diameters 800-1400 km. Their surfaces have lost some of the volatile ices (methane and nitrogen in particular) to Jeans escape, while the remaining ices contain ammonia and crystalline water ice with some cryovolcanism. Our fourth group is the Large bodies (Pluto, Eris, Sedna, Triton, and 2005 FY9) with diameters >1400; km. These bodies are large enough to support active cryovolcanism plus seasonal frost formation/sublimation and are large enough so that the methane and nitrogen ices dominate because they have not been lost to Jeans escape. Our fifth group is the Collisional bodies (including the 2003 EL61 collisional family) which all have similar orbits. Their surfaces all have very neutral colors, low opposition surges, and relatively high albedos, because the volatile ices were all lost during the collision leaving a young surface with only water ice.

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