A Pluto--Charon Sonata: Dynamical Limits on the Masses of the Small Satellites

Abstract

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 2$\sigma$ 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 $\sim$ 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.

20 pages of text, 3 tables, 9 figures, submitted to Astronomical Journal

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Orbital Stability of Circumstellar Planets in Binary Systems
• A Pluto-Charon Concerto: An Impact on Charon as the Origin of the Small Satellites
• Past and present dynamics of the circumbinary moons in the Pluto-Charon system
• On the Estimation of Circumbinary Orbital Properties
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• A Pluto--Charon Sonata IV. Improved Constraints on the Dynamical Behavior and Masses of the Small Satellites