Discovery of a Binary Centaur - Unmanned Spaceflight.com

Unmanned Spaceflight.com > Other Missions > Cometary and Asteroid Missions

Discovery of a Binary Centaur

ljk4-1 View Member Profile	May 31 2006, 08:38 PM Post #1
Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430	Astrophysics, abstract astro-ph/0605606 From: Keith Noll [view email] Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 22:07:40 GMT (68kb) Discovery of a Binary Centaur Authors: K. S. Noll, H. F. Levison, W. M. Grundy, D. C. Stephens Comments: 20 pages, 4 figures, 1 table accepted for publication in Icarus We have identified a binary companion to (42355) 2002 CR46 in our ongoing deep survey using the Hubble Space Telescope's High Resolution Camera. It is the first companion to be found around an object in a non-resonant orbit that crosses the orbits of giant planets. Objects in orbits of this kind, the Centaurs, have experienced repeated strong scattering with one or more giant planets and therefore the survival of binaries in this transient population has been in question. Monte Carlo simulations suggest, however, that binaries in (42355) 2002 CR46 -like heliocentric orbits have a high probability of survival for reasonable estimates of the binary's still-unknown system mass and separation. Because Centaurs are thought to be precursors to short period comets, the question of the existence of binary comets naturally arises; none has yet been definitively identified. The discovery of one binary in a sample of eight observed by HST suggests that binaries in this population may not be uncommon. http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0605606 -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined, and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853