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Published August 10, 2013 | Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

Centaurs and Scattered Disk Objects in the Thermal Infrared: Analysis of WISE/NEOWISE Observations

Abstract

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 ± 0.04 for the entire data set. Thermal fits yield average beaming parameters of 0.9 ± 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 ± 0.3. The data also reveal a relation between albedo and color at the 3σ level. No significant relation between diameter and albedos is found.

Additional Information

© 2013 American Astronomical Society. Received 2013 February 23; accepted 2013 June 5; published 2013 July 22. This publication makes use of data products from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This publication also makes use of data products from NEOWISE, which is a project of JPL/Caltech, funded by the Planetary Science Division of NASA. This material is based in part upon work supported by NASA through the NASA Astrobiology Institute under Cooperative Agreement No. NNA09DA77A issued through the Office of Space Science. R. Stevenson is supported by the NASA Postdoctoral Program, and E. Kramer acknowledges her support through the JPL graduate internship program. Data were based in part on observations obtained at the Hale Telescope, Palomar Observatory, as part of a collaborative agreement between the California Institute of Technology, its divisions Caltech Optical Observatories, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (operated for NASA). Also, this work is based in part on observations obtained at the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope, which is a joint project of the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, e Inovação (MCTI) da República Federativa do Brasil, the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and Michigan State University (MSU), with time allocated through NOAO. We thank the anonymous reviewer for the very helpful comments of manuscript drafts.

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Submitted - 1306.1862.pdf

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Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 24, 2023