No Arabic abstract
We present new results on the Eris/Dysnomia system including analysis of new images from the WFC3 instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Seven HST orbits were awarded to program 15171 in January and February 2018, with the intervals between observations selected to sample Dysnomia over a full orbital period. Using relative astrometry of Eris and Dysnomia, we computed a best-fit Keplerian orbit for Dysnomia. Based on the Keplerian fit, we find an orbital period of 15.785899$pm$0.000050 days, which is in good agreement with recent work. We report a non-zero eccentricity of 0.0062 at the 6.2-$sigma$ level, despite an estimated eccentricity damping timescale of $leq$17 Myr. Considering the volumes of both Eris and Dysnomia, the new system density was calculated to be 2.43$pm$0.05 g cm$^{-3}$, a decrease of $sim$4% from the previous value of 2.52$pm$0.05 g cm$^{-3}$. The new astrometric measurements were high enough precision to break the degeneracy of the orbit pole orientation, and indicate that Dysnomia orbits in a prograde manner. The obliquity of Dysnomias orbit pole with respect to the plane of Eris heliocentric orbit was calculated to be 78.29$pm$0.65$^{circ}$ and is in agreement with previous work; the next mutual events season will occur in 2239. The Keplerian orbit fit to all the data considered in this investigation can be excluded at the 6.3-$sigma$ level, but identifying the cause of the deviation was outside the scope of this work.
ERIS is the new AO instrument for VLT-UT4 led by a Consortium of Max-Planck Institut fuer Extraterrestrische Physik, UK-ATC, ETH-Zurich, ESO and INAF. The ERIS AO system provides NGS mode to deliver high contrast correction and LGS mode to extend high Strehl performance to large sky coverage. The AO module includes NGS and LGS wavefront sensors and, with VLT-AOF Deformable Secondary Mirror and Laser Facility, will provide AO correction to the high resolution imager NIX (1-5um) and the IFU spectrograph SPIFFIER (1-2.5um). In this paper we present the preliminary design of the ERIS AO system and the estimated correction performance.
Here we present new adaptive optics observations of the Quaoar-Weywot system. With these new observations we determine an improved system orbit. Due to a 0.39 day alias that exists in available observations, four possible orbital solutions are available with periods of $sim11.6$, $sim12.0$, $sim12.4$, and $sim12.8$ days. From the possible orbital solutions, system masses of $1.3-1.5pm0.1times10^{21}$ kg are found. These observations provide an updated density for Quaoar of $2.7-5.0{g cm$^{-3}$}$. In all cases, Weywots orbit is eccentric, with possible values $sim0.13-0.16$. We present a reanalysis of the tidal orbital evolution of the Quoaor-Weywot system. We have found that Weywot has probably evolved to a state of synchronous rotation, and have likely preserved their initial inclinations over the age of the Solar system. We find that for plausible values of the effective tidal dissipation factor tides produce a very slow evolution of Weywots eccentricity and semi-major axis. Accordingly, it appears that Weywots eccentricity likely did not tidally evolve to its current value from an initially circular orbit. Rather, it seems that some other mechanism has raised its eccentricity post-formation, or Weywot formed with a non-negligible eccentricity.
In recent years, several protoplanetary discs have been observed to exhibit spirals, both in scattered light and (sub)millimetre continuum data. The HD 100453 binary star system hosts such a disc around its primary. Previous work has argued that the spirals were caused by the gravitational interaction of the secondary, which was assumed to be on a circular orbit, coplanar with the disc (meaning here the large outer disc, as opposed to the very small inner disc). However, recent observations of the CO gas emission were found incompatible with this assumption. In this paper, we run SPH simulations of the gas and dust disc for seven orbital configurations taken from astrometric fits and compute synthetic observations from their results. Comparing to high-resolution ALMA $^{12}$CO data, we find that the best agreement is obtained for an orbit with eccentricity $e=0.32$ and semi-major axis $a=207$ au, inclined by $61^circ$ relative to the disc plane. The large misalignment between the disc and orbit planes is compatible with the tidal evolution of a circumprimary disc in an eccentric, unequal-mass binary star.
While the vast majority of multiple-planet systems have their orbital angular momentum axes aligned with the spin axis of their host star, Kepler-56 is an exception: its two transiting planets are coplanar yet misaligned by at least 40 degrees with respect to their host star. Additional follow-up observations of Kepler-56 suggest the presence of a massive, non-transiting companion that may help explain this misalignment. We model the transit data along with Keck/HIRES and HARPS-N radial velocity data to update the masses of the two transiting planets and infer the physical properties of the third, non-transiting planet. We employ a Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampler to calculate the best-fitting orbital parameters and their uncertainties for each planet. We find the outer planet has a period of 1002 $pm$ 5 days and minimum mass of 5.61 $pm$ 0.38 Jupiter masses. We also place a 95% upper limit of 0.80 m/s/yr on long-term trends caused by additional, more distant companions.
We report observations of the Jupiter Trojan asteroid (3548) Eurybates and its satellite Queta with the Hubble Space Telescope and use these observations to perform an orbital fit to the system. Queta orbits Eurybates with a semimajor axis of $2350pm11$ km at a period of $82.46pm0.06$ days and an eccentricity of $0.125pm0.009$. From this orbit we derive a mass of Eurybates of $1.51pm0.03 times 10^{17}$ kg, corresponding to an estimated density of $1.1pm0.3$ g cm$^{-3}$, broadly consistent with densities measured for other Trojans, C-type asteroids in the outer main asteroid belt, and small icy objects from the Kuiper belt. Eurybates is the parent body of the only major collisional family among the Jupiter Trojans; its low density suggests that it is a typical member of the Trojan population. Detailed study of this system in 2027 with the Lucy spacecraft flyby should allow significant insight into collisional processes among what appear to be the icy bodies of the Trojan belt.