Satellite searches at Pluto and Mars |
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| Authors: | Philip D Nicholson Brett J Gladman |
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| Institution: | a Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
b Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada |
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| Abstract: | We report the results of searches for outer satellites of Pluto and Mars, carried out with the Hale 5-m telescope in 1999 and 2001, respectively. No new satellites were found down to limiting magnitudes of mR=25.0 at Pluto and mV∼22 at Mars, corresponding to diameters of 35 and 1 km, respectively, for an assumed geometric albedo of 0.07. A faint trans-neptunian object, 1999 LB37, was discovered in the Pluto fields; given the depth of our survey, discovery of one such object in the background Kuiper belt is in reasonable agreement with expectations. |
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| Keywords: | Pluto Mars Satellites of Mars Satellites general Trans-neptunian objects |
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