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A Dwarf Planet Class Object in the 21:5 Resonance with Neptune

Holman, Matthew J. et al. (2018)

Published
Mar 1, 2018
DOI
10.3847/2041-8213/aaadb3

At a GlanceAI

Pan-STARRS dwarf planet candidate 2010 JO179 sits securely in the high-order 21:5 resonance with Neptune.

SummaryAI

The Pan-STARRS Outer Solar System Survey reports 2010 JO179: red, roughly round, slowly rotating (30.6 hr), with an estimated diameter of 600-900 km. Observations spanning 2005-2016 give an unusually precise orbit (a = 78.307 au). It librates securely in the 21:5 resonance with Neptune over 100 Myr, joining a small set of distant dwarf planets on metastable resonant orbits, which implies a large population moving between high-order resonances, the detached population and the scattering disk.

Method SnapshotAI

Discovery, photometry and long-arc astrometry, with N-body integrations of the orbit.

BackgroundAI

Mean-motion resonances, including high-order ones.