Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Jan 2012
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21930103s&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #301.03
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Although telescopes from the Northern hemisphere can reach declinations as south as -25 degrees, the Southern hemisphere has to date remained virtually unexplored for the largest Kuiper belt objects (KBOs), with potentially 1-2 new dwarf planet-sized bodies awaiting discovery. In order to find the largest and brightest members of the Kuiper belt, we are engaged in a three-year observational campaign to survey the southern skies using the robotized ESO 1.0-m Schmidt Telescope located at La Silla Observatory in Chile equipped with the QUEST large-area CCD camera, with an effective field of view of 8.3 square degrees. We have surveyed 10,000 square degrees south of the ecliptic to a depth of R magnitude 21.5. We present the detections from the La Silla-QUEST survey and estimates for the number of dwarf planets residing in the outer solar system and remain to be discovered.
With the majority of our sky coverage, south of -20 degrees ecliptic latitude, our survey is sensitive to extreme inclination orbits. The discovery of 2008 KV42, (by Gladman et al.) with a perihelion near Uranus and an extreme (nearly perpendicular) inclination of 104 degrees, suggests a population of bodies on similar orbits with high inclinations compared to typical KBOs and Centaurs. These objects are metastable gravitationally scattering off of Uranus and Neptune with lifetimes of hundreds of million years, suggesting there must be a source population feeding this unstable reservoir. In our survey, we have found a new member of this high-inclination population, 2010 WG9 with an inclination of 70 degrees and a perihelion of 18.7 AU. We discuss the implications and origins for a population of high-inclination orbits in the Kuiper belt, placing constraints on the size and distribution of such a population.
Acknowledgements: MES is supported by a NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship under award AST-1003258.
Brasser Ramon
Rabinowitz David L.
Schwamb Megan E.
Tourtellotte Suzanne
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