The colors of cometary nuclei and other primitive bodies

Details The colors of cometary nuclei and other primitive bodies The colors of cometary nuclei and other primitive bodies

Dec 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005dps....37.1617t&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #37, #16.17; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 37, p.1563

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Primitive minor objects like Kuiper-belt objects (KBOs), Centaurs, cometary nuclei and low-albedo asteroids contain a considerable amount of information regarding the formation of early solar system planetesimals and some of the primordial processes. Broadband colors by themselves offer limited insight into surface composition but correlations either between different color indices or with other (e.g., orbital) parameters can shed some light on the questions of the composition and the evolution of the minor objects. Furthermore, a systematic comparison of the color indices of various populations may provide clues on their relationships, and concur along with dynamical studies, to establish a scenario of their formation and evolution in the solar system. We present new color results on cometary nuclei obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) whose superior resolution enables us to accurately isolate the nucleus signals from the surrounding comae. By combining with scrutinized available data obtained with ground-based telescopes, we accumulated a sample of 39 cometary nuclei, 34 ecliptic comets (ECs) and 5 nearly-isotropic comets (NICs) using the nomenclature of Levison (1996). We analyze color distributions and color-color correlations as well as correlations with other physical parameters. We present our own compilation of colors of 282 objects in the outer solar system, separately considering the different dynamical populations, classical KBOs in low and high-inclination orbits, resonant KBOs (practically Plutinos), scattered-disk objects (SDOs) and Centaurs. We perform a systematic analysis of color distributions of all plausible parent-child combinations and conclude by synthesizing the implications of the colors for the origin of ecliptic comets.
We acknowledge the support of the French "Programme National de Planétologie", jointly funded by CNRS and CNES, and of the bilateral French--Hungarian cooperation program. I. Toth further acknowledges the support of the Université de Provence, of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences through grant No. 9871.

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