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Sodium Brightening of (3200) Phaethon near Perihelion
Zhang, Qicheng; Knight, Matthew M.; Battams, Karl +2 more
Sunskirting asteroid (3200) Phaethon has been repeatedly observed in Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) Heliospheric Imager 1 (HI1) imagery to anomalously brighten and produce an antisunward tail for a few days near each perihelion passage, phenomena previously attributed to the ejection of micron-sized dust grains. Color imaging by …
Near to Mid-infrared Spectroscopy of (65803) Didymos as Observed by JWST: Characterization Observations Supporting the Double Asteroid Redirection Test
de León, Julia; Lucchetti, Alice; Pajola, Maurizio +17 more
The Didymos binary asteroid was the target of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which intentionally impacted Dimorphos, the smaller member of the binary system. We used the Near-Infrared Spectrograph and Mid-Infrared Instrument instruments on JWST to measure the 0.6-5 and 5-20 µm spectra of Didymos approximately two months…
The State of CO and CO2 Ices in the Kuiper Belt as Seen by JWST
Fraser, Wesley C.; Brown, Michael E.
JWST has shown that CO2 and CO are common on the surfaces of objects in the Kuiper Belt and have apparent surface coverages even higher than that of water ice, though water ice is expected to be significantly more abundant in the bulk composition. Using full Mie scattering theory, we show that the high abundance and the unusual spectral…
Synchronous Rotation in the (136199) Eris-Dysnomia System
Bacon, D.; Smith, M.; Abbott, T. M. C. +48 more
We combine photometry of Eris from a 6 month campaign on the Palomar 60 inch telescope in 2015, a 1 month Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 campaign in 2018, and Dark Energy Survey data spanning 2013-2018 to determine a light curve of definitive period 15.771 ± 0.008 days (1σ formal uncertainties), with nearly sinusoidal shape and peak-to-peak flux vari…
Col-OSSOS: The Two Types of Kuiper Belt Surfaces
Marsset, Michaël; Fraser, Wesley C.; Pike, Rosemary E. +12 more
The Colors of the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (Col-OSSOS) has gathered a high-quality, near-simultaneous, and brightness-complete sample of (g - r) and (r - J) colors for 102 Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) with (u - g) and (r - z) gathered for some. We present the current state of the survey and data analysis. Recognizing that the optical colors…
Probing Ganymede's Atmosphere with HST Lyα Images in Transit of Jupiter
Saur, Joachim; Roth, Lorenz; Becker, Tracy M. +6 more
We report results from far-ultraviolet observations by the Hubble Space Telescope of Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, transiting across the planet's dayside hemisphere. Within a targeted campaign on 2021 September 9 two exposures were taken during one transit passage to probe for attenuation of Jupiter's hydrogen Lyα dayglow above the moon limb. …
Saturn's Seismic Rotation Revisited
Fuller, Jim; Dewberry, Janosz W.; Mankovich, Christopher R.
Normal mode seismology is a promising means of measuring rotation in gas giant interiors, and ring seismology presents a singular opportunity to do so at Saturn. We calculate Saturn's normal modes of oscillation and zonal gravity field, using nonperturbative methods for normal modes in the rigidly rotating approximation, and perturbative methods f…
First Detection of CO2 Emission in a Centaur: JWST NIRSpec Observations of 39P/Oterma
Villanueva, G. L.; Faggi, S.; DiSanti, M. A. +9 more
Centaurs are minor solar system bodies with orbits transitioning between those of trans-Neptunian scattered disk objects and Jupiter-family comets (JFCs). 39P/Oterma (39P) is a frequently active centaur that has recently held both centaur and JFC classifications and was observed with the JWST NIRSpec instrument on 2022 July 27 UTC while it was 5.8…
Col-OSSOS: Evidence for a Compositional Gradient Inherited from the Protoplanetary Disk?
Marsset, Michaël; Fraser, Wesley C.; Pike, Rosemary E. +8 more
In the present-day Kuiper Belt, the number of compositional classes and the orbital distributions of these classes hold important cosmogonic implications for the solar system. The Colours of the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (Col-OSSOS) recently showed that the observed color distribution of small (H ⪆ 6) trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) can be …
Depletion of 13C in CO in the Atmosphere of Mars Suggested by ExoMars-TGO/NOMAD Observations
Aoki, S.; Vandaele, A. C.; Daerden, F. +19 more
The atmosphere of Mars is mainly composed by carbon dioxide (CO2). It has been predicted that photodissociation of CO2 depletes 13C in carbon monoxide (CO). We present the carbon 13C/12C isotopic ratio in CO at 30-50 km altitude from the analysis of the solar occultation measurements taken by …