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ESO-Large Program on TNOs: Near-infrared spectroscopy with SINFONI

Authors :
A. Guilbert
Catherine de Bergh
A. Delsanti
Frederic Merlin
Maria Antonietta Barucci
Alvaro Alvarez-Candal
Christophe Dumas
Source :
Icarus, Icarus, Elsevier, 2009, 201 (1), pp.272. ⟨10.1016/j.icarus.2008.12.023⟩
Publication Year :
2009
Publisher :
Elsevier BV, 2009.

Abstract

International audience; We present in this work the observations performed with SINFONI in the framework of a new ESO-Large Program (2006-2008) on Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) and Centaurs. We obtained 21 near-infrared (1.49 to 2.4 microns) spectra of high quality, including 4 spectra of objects never observed before. We search for the presence of features due to ices, particularly water ice. Eris is the only object showing deep methane ice absorption bands. The spectra of 4 objects are featureless, and 6 others show clearly the presence of water ice. For 7 objects, the detections are more ambiguous, but absorption bands could be embedded in the noise. The 3 remaining spectra are too noisy to draw any reliable conclusion. The possible amount of water ice on each object's surface has been computed. The analysis shows that some objects present strong compositional heterogeneities over the surface (e.g. Chariklo), while some others are completely homogeneous (e.g. Quaoar).

Details

ISSN :
00191035 and 10902643
Volume :
201
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Icarus
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....9f492b8db18554dbcc45e8645f453beb