A Pluto–Charon Sonata: Dynamical Limits on the Masses of the Small Satellites
Scott J. Kenyon, Benjamin C. Bromley
(Submitted on 11 Mar 2019)
During 2005-2012, images from Hubble Space Telescope (HST) revealed four moons orbiting Pluto-Charon (Weaver et al 2006, Showalter et al 2011, 2012). Although their orbits and geometric shapes are well-known, the 2σ uncertainties in the masses of the two largest satellites – Nix and Hydra – are comparable to their HST masses (Brozovic et al 2015, Showalter & Hamilton 2015, Weaver et al 2016). Remarkably, gravitational n-body computer calculations of the long-term system stability on 0.1-1 Gyr time scales place much tighter constraints on the masses of Nix and Hydra, with upper limits ∼ 10% larger than the HST mass. Constraints on the mass density using size measurements from New Horizons suggest Nix and Hydra formed in icier material than Pluto and Charon.
Comments: 20 pages of text, 3 tables, 9 figures, submitted to Astronomical Journal
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:1903.04520 [astro-ph.EP]
(or arXiv:1903.04520v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Scott J. Kenyon
[v1] Mon, 11 Mar 2019 18:08:52 UTC (1,054 KB)
