The search for Planet X Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona. Overview. Andy Lubenow

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1 The discovery of two new satellites of Pluto Max Mutchler Space Telescope Science Institute Open Night 3 January 2006 Andy Lubenow Hubble Pluto Satellite Search Team reporting the discovery to the New Horizons Science Team on November 2, 2005 at the Kennedy Space Center Left to Right: Hal Weaver (JHU/APL), Andrew Steffl (SwRI), S. Alan Stern (SwRI), Leslie Young (SwRI), John Spencer (SwRI), Marc Buie (Lowell Observatory), Bill Merline (SwRI), Max Mutchler (STScI), and Eliot Young (SwRI) Overview Discovery of Pluto, Charon, and the Kuiper Belt Early Hubble observations of Pluto Hubble mission support for New Horizons: discovery of two more Pluto satellites Confirming and following-up the discovery Implications, and recent related discoveries New Horizons mission update by Hal Weaver Questions? The search for Planet X Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona The discovery of Pluto in 1930, and confirmation Percival Lowell Vesto Slipher Clyde Tombaugh

2 The discovery of Pluto s moon Charon in 1978 James Christy and Robert Harrington, U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, D.C Kuiper & Humason, didn t find Charon 1978 Christy & Harrington, serendipitous discovery of Charon (above) 1991 Stern: found no more satellites beyond ~100,000 km from Pluto 2005 Gladman et al. paper -- seemed to doom this Hubble search The slowly emerging picture of Pluto Charon 1200 km Earth Pluto Moon 12,800 km 2300 km 3000 km

3 Everything we know about Pluto Pluto discovered; eccentric orbit * 1955 rotation period 6.4 days 1965 stable 3:2 resonant orbit with Neptune 1973 obliquity > 90 deg * 1976 methane ice on surface; size constrained 1978 Charon discovered; binary planet * 1980 Occultation reveals Charon radius to be 600 km 1985 Pluto-Charon mutual events begin Pluto has not given up it s secrets very easily over the first 75 years Everything we know about Pluto Pluto & Charon radii, albedos, colors 1987 Pluto density is 2 g/cm Pluto orbit chaotic; atmosphere, polar caps 1989 Pluto & Triton similar, structure in atmosphere 1992 Nitrogen and CO ice, density disparity 1992 Discovery of the Kuiper Belt 2001 Binary Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) 2005 Two more moons discovered! P1 and P2. Early Hubble observations of Pluto and Charon Discovery of two new moons of Pluto New satellite discovery observations Press release image for new moons: the discovery was surprisingly easy for Hubble with ACS but not quite as easy as it looks here. Hubble proposal designed by Weaver, Stern, et al., initially rejected, then accepted when STIS died Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) Wide Field Channel (WFC) covers entire orbital stability zone Pluto-Charon near chip gap: peek-a-boo! 4 long exposures on May 15 and May 18, 2005, using only 2 orbits Hal s request, June 13

4 Calibrating and drizzling ACS images Hubble Servicing Mission 3B in March 2002: ACS installed Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) The Whirlpool Galaxy M51 Notice the star trails, cosmic rays, chip gap 15 May 2005, frame 1 Notice the star trails, cosmic rays, chip gap Dithering across the chip gap now see anything? 15 May 2005, frame 2 15 May 2005, frame 3

5 Dithering across the chip gap now see anything? Looking for real objects among all the artifacts 15 May 2005, frame 4 15 May 2005, sum 4 frames Looking for real objects among all the artifacts Do it again 3 days later where are the moons? 15 May 2005, median 4 frames 18 May 2005, frame 1 Do it again 3 days later where are the moons? Dither across the gap where are the moons? 18 May 2005, frame 2 18 May 2005, frame 3

6 Do it again 3 days later where are the moons? 18 May 2005, frame 4 18 May 2005, sum 4 frames Clean image Clean image 18 May 2005, median 4 frames 15 May 2005, median 4 frames S/2005 P 1 Charon S/2005 P 2 15 and 18 May 2005, sum 8 frames 15 and 18 May 2005, median 8 frames

7 Initial thoughts Too easy?!? Well-designed program: long exposure times (but not too long), two epochs Surprised there were two new objects: one would have been plenty amazing! Two objects somewhat validate each other, and our assumptions about their orbits Surprised they are so close to Pluto: expecting any moons to be much farther out, but they don t violate dynamical constraints (Stern, 1994) Confirmation and follow-up Independent discovery in Aug 2005 by Andrew Steffl Search other existing data: Hubble, Subaru Hubble follow-up: impossible until Feb 2006 (2 gyros) Ground-based attempts to image the new moons in Sep/Oct: Keck, VLT, Gemini (difficult until spring 2006) Checklist of alternate explanations: rule them out? Confident enough to announce on 31 October 2005 The checklist of possible explanations Artifacts from the detector or optics: hot pixels, optical ghosts, scattered light, etc Real foreground/background objects: asteroids? binary KBO? Plutinos? New moons of Pluto! Preliminary assumptions and implications Orbits are co-planar with Charon, nearly circular, possibly in stable resonances with each other Probably formed primordially with Charon (collision), not later (captured) No other moons of similar magnitude (unless artifacts hid them in June; we d find them in Feb 2006); very compact system Pluto first KBO with multiple satellites: implies there are probably many more Pre-discovery observations in 2002 Hubble program by Buie & Young ACS High Resolution Channel Primarily designed to map surface features of Pluto and Charon New moons marginally detected Further observations will definitively determine orbits, and hopefully confirm these detections: are the satellites where they should be?

8 The quadruple planet Pluto Pluto Charon S/2005 P 1 S/2005 P 2 Visual magnitude / / Diameter 2328 km +/- 42 km 1208 km +/- 4 km km km Orbital radius * (barycentric) 64,700 km (3.7x Charon) 49,400 km (2.8x Charon) Orbital period * days days 38.2 days (~6x Charon) 25.5 days (~4x Charon) Relative sizes of Pluto, Charon, and the two new moons (P1 and P2) 2300 km 1200 km P1 P2 ~100 km New moons are 5000x fainter, 12x smaller, and 3-4x farther out than Charon, with possible 6:4:1 orbital resonances What does a quadruple planet look like? Announcement and publications Weaver et al, 2005, IAU Circular 8625 Weaver et al., 2006, Nature (accepted) Stern et al., 2006, Nature (accepted) Steffl et al., Astronomical Journal (submitted) Pre-prints available online at: arxiv.org/archive/astro-ph Xena & Gabrielle Xena The 10 th planet? Pluto Moon Earth

9 Should we call Pluto a planet? I m neutral. But some things to consider Is Pluto the first of many Kuiper Belt ice dwarf planets discovered? Is larger Xena the 10 th planet? Are slightly smaller Sedna, Quaoar planets? Ceres was called a planet for ~50 years, then demoted to asteroid (a precedent) Will we have only 8 planets, or hundreds of them? Is this a problem? Seems like progress to me. The IAU is working on it in the meanwhile, it is a harmless and healthy non-controversy Good luck to New Horizons, the next great Voyage of Discovery It s greatest discoveries will surely be the unexpected ones. It will surely inspire the next generation of math and science students Voyagers Launched in Launch currently set for: January 17, :11 PM EST Questions? Hal Weaver Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and New Horizons Project Scientist AND TWO LITTLE MOONS! More information:

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