The color and binarity of (486958) 2014 MU69 and other long-range New Horizons Kuiper Belt targets
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1812.04752.pdf
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Accepted version
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952.03 KB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
214c3afffb99e544057359527ab027de
Author(s)
Binzel, Richard P
Date Issued
December 2019
Journal
Icarus
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Citation
Benecchi, S.D., et al., "The color and binarity of (486958) 2014 MU69 and other long-range New Horizons Kuiper Belt targets." Icarus 334 (2019): p. 22-9 doi 10.1016/J.ICARUS.2019.01.025 ©2019 Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) measured the colors of eight Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) that will be observed by the New Horizons spacecraft including its 2019 close fly-by target the Cold Classical KBO (486958) 2014 MU69. We find that the photometric colors of all eight objects are red, typical of the Cold Classical dynamical population within which most reside. Because 2014 MU69 has a similar color to that of other KBOs in the Cold Classical region of the Kuiper Belt, it may be possible to use the upcoming high-resolution New Horizons observations of 2014 MU69 to draw conclusions about the greater Cold Classical population. Additionally, HST found none of these KBOs to be binary within separations of ~0.06 arcsec (~2000 km at 44 AU range) and Δm ≤ 0.5. This conclusion is consistent with the lower fraction of binaries found at relatively wide separations. A few objects appear to have significant photometric variability, but our observations are not of sufficient signal-to-noise or time duration for further interpretation. ©2019
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ICARUS.2019.01.025
