Reports asymmetric heliocentric activity slopes for 103P/Hartley 2 and exponential outburst decay plus flattening phase curves for Chiron from ATLAS, ZTF, and LCO photometry.
Destruction of Binary Minor Planets During Neptune Scattering
1 Pith paper cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.
abstract
The existence of extremely wide binaries in the low-inclination component of the Kuiper Belt provides a unique handle on the dynamical history of this population. Some popular frameworks of the formation of the Kuiper Belt suggest that planetesimals were moved there from lower semi-major axis orbits by scattering encounters with Neptune. We test the effects such events would have on binary systems, and find that wide binaries are efficiently destroyed by the kinds of scattering events required to create the Kuiper Belt with this mechanism. This indicates that a binary-bearing component of the cold Kuiper Belt was emplaced through a gentler mechanism or was formed in situ.
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Multi-year Ground-Based Survey Photometry of Active Comet 103P/Hartley 2 and Centaur (2060) Chiron: A Tale of Two Comets in the Pre-LSST Era
Reports asymmetric heliocentric activity slopes for 103P/Hartley 2 and exponential outburst decay plus flattening phase curves for Chiron from ATLAS, ZTF, and LCO photometry.