Related papers: The Sizes of Kuiper Belt Objects

All transiting planet observations are at risk of contamination from nearby, unresolved stars. Blends dilute the transit signal, causing the planet to appear smaller than it really is, or produce a false positive detection when the target…

The `kernel' of the classical Kuiper belt was discovered by Petit et al. (2011) as a visual overdensity of objects with low ecliptic inclinations and eccentricities at semimajor axes near 44 AU. This raises the question - are there other…

The discovery of binaries in each of the major populations of minor bodies in the solar system is propelling a rapid growth of heretofore unattainable physical information. The availability of mass and density constraints for minor bodies…

We select 50 main-belt asteroids with a diameter between 20 and 400 km for which we have (i) shape models derived by the lightcurve inversion method (LI) and (ii) resolved observations of good quality collected with the Keck II adaptive…

About 2500 square degrees of sky south of declination -25 degrees and/or near the galactic plane were surveyed for bright outer solar system objects. This survey is one of the first large scale southern sky and galactic plane surveys to…

Extensive time-resolved observations of Kuiper Belt object 2001 QG298 show a lightcurve with a peak-to-peak variation of 1.14 +-0.04 magnitudes and single-peaked period of 6.8872 +- 0.0002 hr. The mean absolute magnitude is 6.85 magnitudes…

Observations of circumstellar disks provide a powerful tool for our understanding of planetary systems dynamics. Analogs to the Solar System asteroid belts, debris disks result from the collision of the remaining solid material of the…

The near-infrared spectrum of (50000) Quaoar obtained at the Keck Observatory shows distinct absorption features of crystalline water ice, solid methane and ethane, and possibly other higher order hydrocarbons. Quaoar is only the fifth…

The occultation of background stars by foreground Solar system objects, such as planets and asteroids, has been widely used as an observational probe to study physical properties associated with the foreground sample. Similarly, the…

We present Herschel PACS photometry of 18 Plutinos and determine sizes and albedos for these objects using thermal modeling. We analyze our results for correlations, draw conclusions on the Plutino size distribution, and compare to earlier…

Here we measure the absolute magnitude distributions (H-distribution) of the dynamically excited and quiescent (hot and cold) Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs), and test if they share the same H-distribution as the Jupiter Trojans. From a…

An important testable prediction of dynamical instability models for the early evolution of the Solar System is that Jupiter Trojans share a source population with the Kuiper belt. Concrete evidence of this prediction remains elusive, as…

The nearly continuous light curves with micromagnitude precision provided by the space mission Kepler are revolutionising our view of pulsating stars. They have revealed a vast sea of low-amplitude pulsation modes that were undetectable…

We numerically integrated the orbits of 1458 particles in the region of the classical Kuiper Belt (41 AU < a < 47 AU) to explore the role of dynamical instabilities in sculpting the inclination distribution of the classical Kuiper Belt…

We present the discovery and initial physical and dynamical characterization of the object 2003 UB313. The object is sufficiently bright that for all reasonable values of the albedo it is certain to be larger than Pluto. Pre-discovery…

We present a procedure for determination of positions and orbital elements, and associated uncertainties, of outer Solar System planets. The orbit-fitting procedure is greatly streamlined compared to traditional methods because acceleration…

The answers to fundamental science questions in astrophysics, ranging from the history of the expansion of the universe to the sizes of nearby stars, hinge on our ability to make precise measurements of diverse astronomical objects. As our…

The Kepler Observatory offers unprecedented photometric precision (<1 mmag) and cadence for monitoring the central stars of planetary nebulae, allowing the detection of tiny periodic light curve variations, a possible signature of binarity.…

The ISOPHOT Serendipity Survey (ISOSS) covered approximately 15 % of the sky at a wavelength of 170 micron while the ISO satellite was slewing from one target to the next. By chance ISOSS slews went over many solar system objects (SSOs). We…

Light curve modulations in the sample of Kepler planet candidates allows the disentangling of the nature of the transiting object by photometrically measuring its mass. This is possible by detecting the effects of the gravitational pull of…