Related papers: Colors and Shapes of the Irregular Planetary Satel…
All four giant planets in the Solar system possess irregular satellites, characterized by large, highly eccentric and/or inclined orbits that are distinct from the nearly circular, uninclined orbits of the regular satellites. This…
The irregular satellites of the giant planets are believed to have been captured during the evolution of the solar system. Knowing their physical parameters, such as size, density, and albedo is important for constraining where they came…
Outer satellites of the planets have distant, eccentric orbits that can be highly inclined or even retrograde relative to the equatorial planes of their planets. These irregular orbits cannot have formed by circumplanetary accretion and are…
We present BVRI colors of 13 Jovian and 8 Saturnian irregular satellites obtained with the 2.56m Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma, the 6.5m Magellan Baade Telescope on La Campanas, and the 6m MMT on Mt. Hopkins. The observations were…
The UKIRT Hemisphere Survey covers the northern sky in the infrared from 0-60 degrees declination. Current data releases include both J and K bands, with H-band data forthcoming. Here we present a novel pipeline to recover asteroids from…
We present BVR photometric colors of six Uranian and two Neptunian irregular satellites, collected using the Magellan Observatory (Las Campanas, Chile) and the Keck Observatory, (Manua Kea, Hawaii). The colors range from neutral to light…
We report g-r and r-i new colors for 21 Saturn Irregular Satellites, among them, 4 previously unreported. This is the highest number of Saturn Irregular satellites reported in a single survey. These satellites were measured by "stacking"…
The irregular satellites of outer planets are thought to have been captured from heliocentric orbits. The exact nature of the capture process, however, remains uncertain. We examine the possibility that irregular satellites were captured…
We present a deep optical survey of Uranus' Hill sphere for small satellites. The Subaru 8-m telescope was used to survey about 3.5 square degrees with a 50% detection efficiency at limiting red magnitude m = 26.1 mag. This magnitude…
We investigate a new theory of the origin of the irregular satellites of the giant planets: capture of one member of a ~100-km binary asteroid after tidal disruption. The energy loss from disruption is sufficient for capture, but it cannot…
Nereid, a satellite of Neptune, has a highly eccentric prograde orbit with a semi-major axis larger than 200 Neptune radius and is classified as an irregular satellite. Although the capture origin of irregular satellites has been widely…
In this paper we present visible range light curves of the irregular Uranian satellites Sycorax, Caliban, Prospero, Ferdinand and Setebos taken with Kepler Space Telescope in the course of the K2 mission. Thermal emission measurements…
In this second paper dedicated to the study of satellite galaxies we present broad-band photometry in the B, V, R and I filters of 49 satellite galaxies orbiting giant isolated spiral galaxies. First analysis of the properties of these…
We present JHKs photometry of 10 Jovian and 4 Saturnian irregular satellites, taken with the Near-InfraRed Imager (NIRI) at the 8-m Gemini North Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The observed objects have near-infrared colors consistent…
Satellites around large asteroids are preferentially found among those with the most rapid rotation and elongated shape. The taxonomic statistics are similarly skewed; in total, 13 asteroids larger than 100 km are known to have satellites,…
We present new measurements of the optical colors of Kuiper Belt Objects, principally from the Keck 10-m telescope. The measurements confirm the existence of a wide spread in the B-V, V-R and R-I color indices (Luu and Jewitt 1996).…
The origins of irregular satellites of the giant planets are an important piece of the giant "puzzle" that is the theory of Solar System formation. It is well established that they are not "in situ" formation objects, around the planet, as…
Radio wavelength astrometry of stars and other objects has a long and productive history. The use of that technique to determine whether stars have planets around them would cover a nearly unique part of the parameter space for detection of…
Irregular satellites of Jupiter with their highly eccentric, inclined and distant orbits suggest that their capture took place just before the giant planet migration. We aim to improve our understanding of the surface composition of…
We present photometric properties of six small (radii < 100 km) satellites of Uranus based on 32 H-(1.49-1.78 um) band images taken on August 29, 2015 from the Keck II Telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii with the near-infrared camera NIRC2…