The geology and geophysics of Kuiper Belt object (486958) Arrokoth
- Creators
- Spencer, J. R.
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Keane, J. T.
Abstract
The Cold Classical Kuiper Belt, a class of small bodies in undisturbed orbits beyond Neptune, are primitive objects preserving information about Solar System formation. In January 2019, the New Horizons spacecraft flew past one of these objects, the 36-km long contact binary (486958) Arrokoth (provisional designation 2014 MU₆₉). Images from the flyby show that Arrokoth has no detectable rings, and no satellites (larger than 180 m diameter) within a radius of 8000 km. Arrokoth has a lightly-cratered smooth surface with complex geological features, unlike those on previously visited Solar System bodies. The density of impact craters indicates the surface dates from the formation of the Solar System. The two lobes of the contact binary have closely aligned poles and equators, constraining their accretion mechanism.
Additional Information
© 2020 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received 14 June 2019; accepted 27 January 2020. Published online 13 February 2020. We thank all who contributed to the success of the New Horizons flyby of Arrokoth, and in particular the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan's Subaru Telescope, the Carnegie Observatory's Magellan Telescopes, the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northern Arizona University, the University of Hawaii, the Hertzberg Institute for Astrophysics, and NASA, for their support of the search campaign that led to its discovery. We also are indebted to the Hubble Space Telescope and the European Space Agency's Gaia mission for their key roles in the precise orbit determination required to enable the successful flyby. Funding: Supported by NASA's New Horizons project via contracts NASW-02008 and NAS5- 97271/TaskOrder30. J.J.K was supported by the National Research Council of Canada and the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Author contributions: The primary contributors to each section were: Stereo and shape modeling: S.B.P., R.A.B., P.M.S., A.M.Z., M.W.B., and T.R.L. Geophysical analysis: J.T.K., O.M.U., and W.B.M. Photometric analysis: B.J.B., J.D.H., A.J.V., S.D.B. Geological mapping and interpretation: J.M.M., O.L.W., R.A.B., O.M.U., J.R.S., T.R.L. Crater analysis: K.N.S., S.J.R., K.D.R., P.M.S., A.H.P. Satellite and ring search: J.R.S., S.B.P., M.W.B., M.R.S., T.R.L., H.B.T., A.J.V., A.M.Z., W.M.G., D.P.H., E.B., D.E.K. Astronomical context: H.A.W., D.T.B., C.M.L., M.R.E., J.J.K., W.B.M. Paper compilation and synthesis: J.R.S. S.A.S. is the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission and reviewed this manuscript. All other authors participated in mission planning, initial discovery and tracking of Arrokoth, science data reduction or analysis, or provided inputs and critique to this manuscript. We declare no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All images, spacecraft data, and the shape model used in this paper are available at figshare (79). Additional fully calibrated New Horizons Arrokoth data and higher-order data products will be released by the NASA Planetary Data System in a series of stages in 2020 and 2021, owing to the time required to fully downlink and calibrate the dataset.Attached Files
Supplemental Material - aay3999_Data_S1.zip
Supplemental Material - aay3999_Data_S2.zip
Supplemental Material - aay3999_Data_S3.csv
Supplemental Material - aay3999_Spencer_SM.pdf
Files
Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 101329
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20200218-130926538
- NASW-02008
- NASA
- NAS5-97271
- NASA
- National Research Council of Canada
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
- Created
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2020-02-18Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field