NICMOS Photometry of the Unusual Dwarf Planet Haumea and its Satellites

Abstract

We present here HST NICMOS F110W and F160W observations of Haumea, and its two satellites Hi'iaka and Namaka. From the measured (F110W-F160W) colours of -1.209 +/-0.004, -1.48 +/- 0.06, and -1.4 +/- 0.2 mag for each object, respectively, we infer that the 1.6 imcron water-ice absorption feature depths on Hi'iaka and Namaka are at least as deep as that of Haumea. The light-curve of Haumea is detected in both filters, and we find that the infrared colour is bluer by approximately 2-3% at the phase of the red spot. These observations suggest that the satellites of Haumea were formed from the collision that produced the Haumea collisional family.

7 Pages, 2 Figures, Accepted in Apj Letters

References in corpus (3)

• High Precision Photometry of Extreme KBO 2003 EL61
• Water Ice on the Satellite of Kuiper Belt Object 2003 EL61
• Detection of Additional Members of the 2003 EL61 Family via Infrared Spectroscopy

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• The Creation of Haumea's Collisional Family
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• "TNOs are Cool": A survey of the trans-Neptunian region XIV. Size/albedo characterization of the Haumea family observed with Herschel and Spitzer
• Spectral trends across the rings and inner moons of Uranus and Neptune from JWST NIRCam images