English

The inclinations of faint TNOs

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2010-09-28 v1

Abstract

Bernstein et al. (2004) found that the population of faint (R>26) trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) known at that time was dominated by "Classical" objects, which have low inclinations (i<5 degrees) and distances 40--45 AU. Since those observations, the number of faint TNOs whose orbits are sufficiently well known to be classified as "Classical" or "Excited" has grown from seven to 39. We analyze the dynamical classifications of faint TNOs known today and find that this population is dominated by Excited objects. We discuss some implications of this result.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1009.5157,
  title  = {The inclinations of faint TNOs},
  author = {David E. Trilling and Cesar I. Fuentes and Matthew J. Holman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1009.5157},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

ApJL in press