Related papers: Low Albedos Among Extinct Comet Candidates
We observed near-Earth asteroid (162421) 2000 ET70 using the Arecibo and Goldstone radar systems over a period of 12 days during its close approach to the Earth in February 2012. We obtained continuous wave spectra and range-Doppler images…
Low-albedo asteroids preserve a record of the primordial solar system planetesimals and the conditions in which the solar nebula was active. However, the origin and evolution of these asteroids are not well-constrained. Here we measured…
The Euphrosyne asteroid family is uniquely situated at high inclination in the outer Main Belt, bisected by the nu_6 secular resonance. This large, low albedo family may thus be an important contributor to specific subpopulations of the…
We have used multi-epoch long-baseline radio interferometry to determine the proper motion and orbital elements of Algol and UX Arietis, two radio-bright, close binary stellar systems with distant tertiary components. For Algol, we refine…
We present a high resolution detailed abundance analysis for a sample of six post-AGB candidate stars, five of them had not been studied spectroscopically in the optical region. All the analyzed objects are IRAS sources identified as…
Current wide-field surveys discover ~15 Jupiter-family comets (JFCs) each year, typically identified via visual detection of a dust coma or tail. The same surveys also discover many asteroids that have distant JFC-like orbits, but with no…
We recently used near-infrared spectroscopy to improve the characterization of 76 low-mass stars around which K2 had detected 79 candidate transiting planets. Thirty of these worlds were new discoveries that have not previously been…
Most of the currently known basaltic (V-type) asteroids are believed to be past or present members of the Vesta dynamical family. The rising discoveries of V-type asteroids that are not dynamically linked to the Vesta family suggest that a…
We present Hubble Space Telescope observations of six binary transneptunian systems: 2000 QL251, 2003 TJ58, 2001 XR254, 1999 OJ4, (134860) 2000 OJ67, and 2004 PB108. The mutual orbits of these systems are found to have periods ranging from…
Context. The dynamical evolution of near-parabolic comets strongly depends on the starting values of the orbital elements derived from the positional observations. In addition, when drawing conclusions about the origin of these objects, it…
We identified a new ultra-distant comet C/2019 E3 (ATLAS) exhibiting preperihelion cometary activity at heliocentric distances $\gtrsim\!20$ au, making it the fourth member of this population after C/2010 U3 (Boattini), C/2014 UN$_{271}$…
The NEOWISE dataset offers the opportunity to study the variations in albedo for asteroid classification schemes based on visible and near-infrared observations for a large sample of minor planets. We have determined the albedos for nearly…
Results from the TESS mission showed that previous studies strngly underestimated the number of slow rotators, revealing the importance of studying those asteroids. For most slowly rotating asteroids (P > 12), no spin and shape model is…
We present a planar four-body model, called the Binary Asteroid Problem, for the motion of two asteroids (having small but positive masses) moving under the gravitational attraction of each other, and under the gravitational attraction of…
All the Trojan asteroids orbit about the Sun at roughly the same heliocentric distance as Jupiter. Differences in the observed visible reflection spectra range from neutral to red, with no ultra-red objects found so far. Given that the…
The main objective of this paper is to fully study 1:1 mean-motion resonance in the Solar System. We calculated stability points applying a resonant semi-analytic theory valid for any value of eccentricity or inclination. The location of…
The reflectance of a particulate surface depends on the phase angle at which it is observed. This is true for laboratory measurements on powders of natural materials as well as remote observations of Solar System surfaces. Here, we measured…
From two Active Asteroid (AA) known in 1979 we have advanced to 37 members at the beginning of 2019. More surprisingly, in the first three months of 2019 five new members were added to the list, one of them, 6478 Gault, with a curious, out…
Dynamical studies of asteroid populations in retrograde orbits, that is with orbital inclinations greater than 90 degrees, are interesting because the origin of such orbits is still unexplained. Generally, the population of retrograde…
While of order a million asteroids have been discovered, the number in rigorously controlled samples that have precise orbits and rotation periods, as well as well-measured colors, is relatively small. In particular, less than a dozen…