The solar system currently possesses two remnant debris disks leftover from the planetary formation era in the form of the asteroid belt and the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt (EKB). Similar to other stellar ...systems, these debris disks continually generate submillimeter-sized dust grains through processes such as mutual collisions, interstellar dust grain bombardment, and sublimation/sputtering of larger grains. Here, we use recent in situ measurements by the New Horizons Student Dust Counter and an interplanetary dust dynamics model to constrain the overall structure and magnitude of the solar system's debris disk, including the disk mass, optical depth, and surface brightness in both scattered light and thermal emission. We find that ∼99% of the solar system's dust disk mass (grains with diameter <1 mm) is contained within EKB and Oort Cloud cometary grains outside of 30 au, with the remaining ∼1% mass in the form of Jupiter-family cometary dust within 5 au. The total disk mass is estimated to be ∼8 × 10−7 M⊕ with a total fractional luminosity of ∼5 × 10−7, confirming our solar system as a relatively dust-poor system compared to debris disks around similar-aged FGK stars. Finally, we estimate that Kuiper Belt Object collisional events such as that which created the Haumea family could transiently increase the current surface brightness of our debris disk by a factor of only ∼6, far less than median brightnesses seen in other nearby disks. This further supports the idea that the EKB has been largely depleted of its primordial mass relative to other stellar systems by instabilities triggered by planetary migration.
The remarkable compositional diversity of volatile ices within comets can plausibly be attributed to several factors, including differences in the chemical, thermal and radiation environments in ...comet-forming regions, chemical evolution during their long storage in reservoirs far from the Sun, and thermal processing by the Sun after removal from these reservoirs. To determine the relevance of these factors, measurements of the chemistry as a function of depth in cometary nuclei are critical. Fragmenting comets expose formerly buried material, but observational constraints have in the past limited the ability to assess the importance of formative conditions and the effects of evolutionary processes on measured composition. Here we report the chemical composition of two distinct fragments of 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3. The fragments are remarkably similar in composition, in marked contrast to the chemical diversity within the overall comet population and contrary to the expectation that short-period comets should show strong compositional variation with depth in the nucleus owing to evolutionary processing from numerous close passages to the Sun. Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 is also depleted in the most volatile ices compared to other comets, suggesting that the depleted carbon-chain chemistry seen in some comets from the Kuiper belt reservoir is primordial and not evolutionary.
Using the NASA/IRTF SpeX and BASS spectrometers we have obtained 0.7-13 m observations of the newly imaged 3-10 Myr old HD 36546 disk system. The SpeX spectrum is most consistent with the ...photospheric emission expected from an L* ∼ 20 L , solar abundance A1.5V star with little to no extinction, and excess emission from circumstellar dust detectable beyond 4.5 m. Non-detections of CO emission lines and accretion signatures point to the gas-poor circumstellar environment of a very old transition disk. Combining the SpeX + BASS spectra with archival WISE/AKARI/IRAS/Herschel photometry, we find an outer cold dust belt at ∼135 K and 20-40 au from the primary, likely coincident with the disk imaged by Subaru, and a new second inner belt with a temperature ∼570 K and an unusual, broad SED maximum in the 6-9 m region, tracing dust at 1.1-2.2 au. An SED maximum at 6-9 m has been reported in just two other A-star systems, HD 131488 and HD 121191, both of ∼10 Myr age. From Spitzer, we have also identified the ∼12 Myr old A7V HD 148657 system as having similar 5-35 m excess spectral features. The Spitzer data allows us to rule out water emission and rule in carbonaceous materials-organics, carbonates, SiC-as the source of the 6-9 m excess. Assuming a common origin for the four young A-star systems' disks, we suggest they are experiencing an early era of carbon-rich planetesimal processing.
The Pluto system was recently explored by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, making closest approach on 14 July 2015. Pluto's surface displays diverse landforms, terrain ages, albedos, colors, and ...composition gradients. Evidence is found for a water-ice crust, geologically young surface units, surface ice convection, wind streaks, volatile transport, and glacial flow. Pluto's atmosphere is highly extended, with trace hydrocarbons, a global haze layer, and a surface pressure near 10 microbars. Pluto's diverse surface geology and long-term activity raise fundamental questions about how small planets remain active many billions of years after formation. Pluto's large moon Charon displays tectonics and evidence for a heterogeneous crustal composition; its north pole displays puzzling dark terrain. Small satellites Hydra and Nix have higher albedos than expected.
ABSTRACT
Neptunian Trojans (NTs), trans-Neptunian objects in 1:1 mean-motion resonance with Neptune, are generally thought to have been captured from the original trans-Neptunian protoplanetary disc ...into co-orbital resonance with the ice giant during its outward migration. It is possible, therefore, that the colour distribution of NTs is a constraint on the location of any colour transition zones that may have been present in the disc. In support of this possible test, we obtained g, r, and i-band observations of 18 NTs, more than doubling the sample of NTs with known visible colours to 31 objects. Out of the combined sample, we found ≈4 objects with g –i colours of >1.2 mags placing them in the very red (VR) category as typically defined. We find, without taking observational selection effects into account, that the NT g – i colour distribution is statistically distinct from other trans-Neptunian dynamical classes. The optical colours of Jovian Trojans and NTs are shown to be less similar than previously claimed with additional VR NTs. The presence of VR objects among the NTs may suggest that the location of the red to VR colour transition zone in the protoplanetary disc was interior to 30 – 35 au.
We report the direct detection of solid water ice deposits exposed on the surface of comet 9P/Tempel 1, as observed by the Deep Impact mission. Three anomalously colored areas are shown to include ...water ice on the basis of their near-infrared spectra, which include diagnostic water ice absorptions at wavelengths of 1.5 and 2.0 micrometers. These absorptions are well modeled as a mixture of nearby non-ice regions and 3 to 6% water ice particles 10 to 50 micrometers in diameter. These particle sizes are larger than those ejected during the impact experiment, which suggests that the surface deposits are loose aggregates. The total area of exposed water ice is substantially less than that required to support the observed ambient outgassing from the comet, which likely has additional source regions below the surface.
•The total productivity of ISON increased by about a factor of 40 between Rh=1.12AU and Rh=0.43AU.•The relative abundances of parent volatiles changed as ISON approached perihelion.•NH3/HCN, ...H2CO/CH3OH, and C2H2/C2H6 measured at Rh=0.46AU are among the highest ratios measured in comets.•Connections between related volatile species in ISON are derived from their spatial distributions in the coma.•C2H2 and HCN are not the primary parents of C2 and CN in ISON.
Volatile production rates, relative abundances, rotational temperatures, and spatial distributions in the coma were measured in C/2012 S1 (ISON) using long-slit high-dispersion (λ/Δλ∼2.5×104) infrared spectroscopy as part of a worldwide observing campaign. Spectra were obtained on UT 2013 October 26 and 28 with NIRSPEC at the W.M. Keck Observatory, and UT 2013 November 19 and 20 with CSHELL at the NASA IRTF. H2O was detected on all dates, with production rates increasing markedly from (8.7±1.5)×1027moleculess−1 on October 26 (Rh=1.12AU) to (3.7±0.4)×1029moleculess−1 on November 20 (Rh=0.43AU). Short-term variability of H2O production is also seen as observations on November 19 show an increase in H2O production rate of nearly a factor of two over a period of about 6h. C2H6, CH3OH and CH4 abundances in ISON are slightly depleted relative to H2O when compared to mean values for comets measured at infrared wavelengths. On the November dates, C2H2, HCN and OCS abundances relative to H2O appear to be within the range of mean values, whereas H2CO and NH3 were significantly enhanced. There is evidence that the abundances with respect to H2O increased for some species but not others between October 28 (Rh=1.07AU) and November 19 (Rh=0.46AU). The high mixing ratios of H2CO/CH3OH and C2H2/C2H6 on November 19, and changes in the mixing ratios of some species with respect to H2O between October 28 to November 19, indicates compositional changes that may be the result of a transition from sampling radiation-processed outer layers in this dynamically new comet to sampling more pristine natal material as the outer processed layer was increasingly eroded and the thermal wave propagated into the nucleus as the comet approached perihelion for the first time. On November 19 and 20, the spatial distribution for dust appears asymmetric and enhanced in the antisolar direction, whereas spatial distributions for volatiles (excepting CN) appear symmetric with their peaks slightly offset in the sunward direction compared to the dust. Spatial distributions for H2O, HCN, C2H6, C2H2, and H2CO on November 19 show no definitive evidence for significant contributions from extended sources; however, broader spatial distributions for NH3 and OCS may be consistent with extended sources for these species. Abundances of HCN and C2H2 on November 19 and 20 are insufficient to account for reported abundances of CN and C2 in ISON near this time. Differences in HCN and CN spatial distributions are also consistent with HCN as only a minor source of CN in ISON on November 19 as the spatial distribution of CN in the coma suggests a dominant distributed source that is correlated with dust and not volatile release. The spatial distributions for NH3 and NH2 are similar, suggesting that NH3 is the primary source of NH2 with no evidence of a significant dust source of NH2; however, the higher production rates derived for NH3 compared to NH2 on November 19 and 20 remain unexplained. This suggests a more complete analysis that treats NH2 as a distributed source and accounts for its emission mechanism is needed for future work.
The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) observed 52 Centaurs and scattered disk objects (SDOs) in the thermal infrared, including 15 new discoveries. We present analyses of these observations ...to estimate sizes and mean optical albedos. We find mean albedos of 0.08 + or - 0.04 for the entire data set. Thermal fits yield average beaming parameters of 0.9 + or - 0.2 that are similar for both SDO and Centaur sub-classes. Biased cumulative size distributions yield size-frequency distribution power law indices of ~-1.7 + or - 0.3. The data also reveal a relation between albedo and color at the 3sigma level. No significant relation between diameter and albedos is found.
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