Related papers: The Colors of Extreme Outer Solar System Objects

Preliminary results of a project aiming at unveiling the nature of the extremely red galaxies (ERGs) (objects with colours R-K>6 and I-K>5) found in deep optical-NIR surveys are presented. Very little is known about these objects, the…

Near-infrared imaging with the Hubble Space Telescope recently revealed a circumstellar dust disk around the A star HD 32297. Dust scattered light is detected as far as 400 AU radius and the linear morphology is consistent with a disk ~10…

Some principles in the distribution of Centaurs and the "Scattered Disk" objects, as well as the Kuiper belt objects for its semi-major axes, eccentricities and inclinations of the orbits have been investigated. It has been established,…

The dust disks observed around mature stars are evidence that plantesimals are present in these systems on spatial scales that are similar to that of the asteroids and the KBOs in the Solar System. These dust disks (a.k.a. ``debris disks'')…

We report high precision photometry of three small and one larger Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) obtained with the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the Hubble Space Telescope (ACS/HST). The three small bodies are the smallest KBOs for which…

The Kepler Mission recently identified 997 systems hosting candidate extrasolar planets, many of which are super-Earths. Realizing these planetary systems are candidates to host extrasolar asteroid belts, we use mid-infrared data from the…

Using the 3.6/4.5/5.8/8.0 micron images with 1.2 arcsec pixel resolution from the Spitzer/GLIMPSE survey, we investigated 23 masing and 18 very red objects that were not identified in the 2MASS survey. Counterparts for all selected objects…

We report the results of a sensitive near-infrared JHKL imaging survey of the Trapezium cluster in Orion. We use the JHKL colors to obtain a census of infrared excess stars in the cluster. Of (391) stars brighter than 12th magnitude in the…

Debris disks with extremely large infrared excesses (fractional luminosities $> 10^{-2}$) are rare. Those with ages between 30 and 130 Myr are of interest because their evolution has progressed well beyond that of protoplanetary disks…

Disks of bodies orbiting a much more massive central object are extremely common in astrophysics. When the orbits comprising such disks are eccentric, we show they are susceptible to a new dynamical instability. Gravitational forces between…

We report optical spectroscopic observations of a sample of 6 low-galactic latitude microquasar candidates selected by cross-identification of X-ray and radio point source catalogs for |b|<5 degrees. Two objects resulted to be of clear…

We report on Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of three Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), discovered in our dedicated ground-based search campaign, that are candidates for long-range observations from the New Horizons spacecraft: 2011…

Recent JWST surveys have revealed two puzzling high-redshift phenomena: (1) an unexpectedly large abundance of flattened, disk-like galaxies at z > 3, and (2) a rare population of compact, extremely red sources at z ~ 4-9 ("Little Red…

We present deep 3.8 micron observations of the Trapezium cluster in Orion obtained with the ESO VLT. We use these data to search for infrared excess emission and evidence for protoplanetary disks associated with the faint, substellar…

We present a systematic investigation of the rotational lightcurves of trans-Neptunian objects based on extensive optical data from Mauna Kea. Four of 13 objects (corresponding to 31%) in our sample ((33128) 1998 BU48, 2000 GN171, (20000)…

We present the results of a deep (about 80 ks) XMM-Newton survey of the largest sample of near-infrared selected Extremely Red Objects (R-K>5) available to date to K_S< 19.2. At the relatively bright X-ray fluxes (F_{2-10 keV}> 4x10^{-15}…

We investigate the distribution of different classes of spectroscopically identified sources and theoretical models in the color-color diagrams (CCDs) combining the near-infrared (NIR) and mid-infrared (MIR) data to develop a method to…

We present VLT near-IR spectroscopic observations of three X-ray sources characterized by extremely high X-ray-to-optical ratios (X/O>40), extremely red colors (6.3<R-K<7.4, i.e. EROs) and bright infrared magnitudes (17.6<K<18.3). These…

The outer solar system exhibits an anomalous pattern of orbital clustering, characterized by an approximate alignment of the apsidal lines and angular momentum vectors of distant, long-term stable Kuiper belt objects. One explanation for…

Debris discs are typically revealed through excess emission at infrared wavelengths. Most discs exhibit excess at mid- and far-infrared wavelengths, analogous to the solar system's Asteroid and Edgeworth-Kuiper belts. Recently, stars with…