Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Sep 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.6206s&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #62.06
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Despite the mounting evidence of an outer edge to the Kuiper belt, several bodies well outside of 50 AU have been discovered including orbits dynamically detached from Neptune. Studying this unexplored population of primordial bodies beyond the Kuiper belt provides a unique opportunity to study the creation and evolution of the early solar system. In particular, the distant solar system object Sedna exists in a region far away from the Kuiper belt and must have been emplaced in its orbit at an earlier time when massive unknown bodies were present in or near the solar system. The orbits of these distant Sedna-like bodies are dynamically frozen and serve as a fossilized record of their formation. We have performed a deep sky survey to search for the most distant bodies in the solar system. With the Subaru Prime Focus Camera (Suprime-Cam) on the 8.2-m Subaru telescope we have surveyed 43 square degrees within 50 degrees of the ecliptic down to a limiting R magnitude of 25.5. Using a two night baseline, our survey is sensitive to motion out to distances of 1200 AU. We present the results of this survey. We examine the radial distribution of the Kuiper belt and discuss the implications for the extended scattered disk and a distant Sedna-like population beyond the Kuiper belt.
Brown Michael E.
Schwamb Megan E.
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