Discovery of a Binary Centaur

Abstract

We have identified a binary companion to (42355) 2002 CR46 in our ongoing deep survey using the Hubble Space Telescope's High Resolution Camera. It is the first companion to be found around an object in a non-resonant orbit that crosses the orbits of giant planets. Objects in orbits of this kind, the Centaurs, have experienced repeated strong scattering with one or more giant planets and therefore the survival of binaries in this transient population has been in question. Monte Carlo simulations suggest, however, that binaries in (42355) 2002 CR46 -like heliocentric orbits have a high probability of survival for reasonable estimates of the binary's still-unknown system mass and separation. Because Centaurs are thought to be precursors to short period comets, the question of the existence of binary comets naturally arises; none has yet been definitively identified. The discovery of one binary in a sample of eight observed by HST suggests that binaries in this population may not be uncommon.

20 pages, 4 figures, 1 table accepted for publication in Icarus

References in corpus (4)

• Simulations of the Population of Centaurs I: The Bulk Statistics
• The Dynamics of Known Centaurs
• The Discovery of Two New Satellites of Pluto
• Detection of Six Transneptunian Binaries with NICMOS: A High Fraction of Binaries in the Cold Classical Disk

Cited by in corpus (16)

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• An Outer Planet Beyond Pluto and Origin of the Trans-Neptunian Belt Architecture
• Kuiper belt: formation and evolution
• Destruction of Binary Minor Planets During Neptune Scattering
• Col-OSSOS: Colors of the Interstellar Planetesimal 1I/`Oumuamua
• The orbit, mass, size, albedo, and density of (65489) Ceto/Phorcys: A tidally-evolved binary Centaur
• (42355) Typhon-Echidna: Scheduling Observations for Binary Orbit Determination
• Binary Survival in the Outer Solar System
• Binaries in the Kuiper Belt
• Production of trans-Neptunian binaries through chaos-assisted capture
• 2007 TY430: A Cold Classical Kuiper Belt Type Binary in the Plutino Population
• Hubble Space Telescope Search for Activity in High Perihelion Objects
• Light curves of ten Centaurs from K2 measurements
• The journey of Typhon-Echidna as a binary system through the planetary region
• Forms and Rotational States of the Nuclei of Ecliptic Comets
• The Onset of Chaos in Permanently Deformed Binaries from Spin-Orbit and Spin-Spin Coupling