The New Horizons Extended Mission Target: Arrokoth Search and Discovery
Abstract
Following the Pluto fly-by of the New Horizons spacecraft, the mission provided a unique opportunity to explore the Kuiper Belt in-situ. The possibility existed to fly-by a Kuiper Belt object (KBO) as well as to observe additional objects at distances closer than are feasible from earth-orbit facilities. However, at the time of launch no KBOs were known about that were accessible by the spacecraft. In this paper we present the results of 10 years of observations and three uniquely dedicated efforts -- two ground-based using the Subaru Suprime Camera, the Magellan MegaCam and IMACS Cameras, and one with the Hubble Space Telescope -- to find such KBOs for study. In this paper we overview the search criteria and strategies employed in our work and detail the analysis efforts to locate and track faint objects in the galactic plane. We also present a summary of all of the KBOs that were discovered as part of our efforts and how spacecraft targetability was assessed, including a detailed description of our astrometric analysis which included development of an extensive secondary calibration network. Overall, these efforts resulted in the discovery of 89 KBOs including 11 which became objects for distant observation by New Horizons and (486958) Arrokoth which became the first post-Pluto fly-by destination.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2403.04927,
title = {The New Horizons Extended Mission Target: Arrokoth Search and Discovery},
author = {Marc W. Buie and John R. Spencer and Simon B. Porter and Susan D. Benecchi and Alex H. Parker and S. Alan Stern and Michael Belton and Richard P. Binzel and David Borncamp and Francesca DeMeo and S. Fabbro and Cesar Fuentes and Hisanori Furusawa and Tetsuharu Fuse and Pamela L. Gay and Stephen Gwyn and Matthew J. Holman and H. Karoji and J. J. Kavelaars and Daisuke Kinoshita and Satoshi Miyazaki and Matt Mountain and Keith S. Noll and David J. Osip and Jean-Marc Petit and Neill I. Reid and Scott S. Sheppard and Mark Showalter and Andrew J. Steffl and Ray E. Sterner and Akito Tajitsu and David J. Tholen and David E. Trilling and Harold A. Weaver and Anne J. Verbiscer and Lawrence H. Wasserman and Takuji Yamashita and Toshifumi Yanagisawa and Fumi Yoshida and Amanda M. Zangari},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.04927},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
Accepted to PSJ. 40 pages, 10 figures, 10 tables