Search

We have conducted extremely ultra-deep pencil beam observations for new satellites around both Uranus and Neptune. Tens of images on several different nights in 2021, 2022 and 2023 were obtained and shifted and added together to reach as faint as 26.9 and 27.2 magnitudes in the r-band around Uranus and Neptune, respectively. One new moon of Uranus, S/2023 U1, and two new moons of Neptune, S/2021 N1 and S/2002 N5, were found. S/2023 U1 was 26.6 mags, is about 7 km in diameter and has a distant, eccentric and inclined retrograde orbit similar to Caliban and Stephano, implying these satellites are fragments from a once larger parent satellite. S/2023 U1 almost completely overlaps Stephano in orbital phase space. S/2021 N1 was 26.9 mags, about 14 km in size and has a retrograde orbit similar to Neso and Psamathe, indicating they are a dynamical family. We find S/2021 N1 is in a Kozai-Lidov orbital resonance. S/2002 N5 was 25.9 mags, is about 23 km in size and it makes a family of distant prograde satellites with Sao and Laomedeia. All three new moons show for the first time dynamical groups of moons exist around both Uranus and Neptune. The creation of these groups likely produced dust that could be the source of red material seen on the leading hemispheres of some larger inner satellites like Titania, Oberon and Umbriel. We also detected all known outer moons of Uranus and Neptune on multiple nights. This survey mostly completes the outer satellites of Uranus to about 8 km and Neptune to about 14 km in diameter. The size distributions of satellite dynamical families around the giant planets shows a strong steepening in the power law size distribution smaller than 5 km in diameter. The satellites of a family become much more common smaller than 5 km and their size distribution is consistent with a collisional break-up of a once larger parent satellite., Comment: Accepted Astronomical Journal

We report the detection of 239 trans-Neptunian Objects discovered through the on-going New Horizons survey for distant minor bodies being performed with the Hyper Suprime-Cam mosaic imager on the Subaru Telescope. These objects were discovered in images acquired with either the r2 or the recently commissioned EB-gri filter using shift and stack routines. Due to the extremely high stellar density of the search region down stream of the spacecraft, new machine learning techniques had to be developed to manage the extremely high false positive rate of bogus candidates produced from the shift and stack routines. We report discoveries as faint as r2$\sim26.5$. We highlight an overabundance of objects found at heliocentric distances $R\gtrsim70$~au compared to expectations from modelling of the known outer Solar System. If confirmed, these objects betray the presence of a heretofore unrecognized abundance of distant objects that can help explain a number of other observations that otherwise remain at odds with the known Kuiper Belt, including detections of serendipitous stellar occultations, and recent results from the Student Dust Counter on-board the New Horizons spacecraft., Comment: Accepted for publication in the Planetary Science Journal, 28 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables

The Jupiter-Saturn chaotic excitation (JSCE) scenario proposes that the protoplanetary disk was dynamically excited and depleted beyond ~1-1.5 au in a few Myr, offering a new and plausible explanation for several observed properties of the inner solar system. Here, we expanded our previous work by conducting a comprehensive analysis of 37 optimal terrestrial planet systems obtained in the context of the JSCE scenario. Each optimal system harbored exactly four terrestrial planets analogs to Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. We further investigated water delivery, feeding zones, and accretion history for the planet analogs, which allowed us to better constrain the water distribution in the disk. The main findings of this work are as follows: 1) the formation of four terrestrial planets with orbits and masses similar to those observed in our solar system in most of our sample, as evidenced by the dynamically colder and hotter orbits of Venus-Earth and Mercury-Mars analogs, and the high success rates of similar mutual orbital separations (~40-85%) and mass ratios of the planets (~70-90%) among the 37 systems; and 2) water was delivered to all terrestrial planets during their formation through the accretion of water-bearing disk objects from beyond ~1-1.5 au. The achievement of Earth's estimated bulk water content required the disk to contain sufficient water mass distributed within those objects initially. This requirement implies that Mercury, Venus, and Mars acquired water similar to the amount on Earth during their formation. Several of our planet analogs also matched additional constraints, such as the timing of Moon formation by a giant impact, Earth's late accretion mass and composition, and Mars's formation timescale., Comment: Manuscript accepted for publication in Icarus (pre-proof check version). The article DOI is not yet available

The orbits of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) can indicate the existence of an undiscovered planet in the outer solar system. Here, we used N-body computer simulations to investigate the effects of a hypothetical Kuiper Belt planet (KBP) on the orbital structure of TNOs in the distant Kuiper Belt beyond ~50 au. We used observations to constrain model results, including the well-characterized Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS). We determined that an Earth-like planet (m ~ 1.5-3 Earth masses) located on a distant (semimajor axis a ~ 250-500 au, perihelion q ~ 200 au) and inclined (i ~ 30 deg) orbit can explain three fundamental properties of the distant Kuiper Belt: a prominent population of TNOs with orbits beyond Neptune's gravitational influence (i.e., detached objects with q > 40 au), a significant population of high-i objects (i > 45 deg), and the existence of some extreme objects with peculiar orbits (e.g., Sedna). Furthermore, the proposed KBP is compatible with the existence of identified Gyr-stable TNOs in the 2:1, 5:2, 3:1, 4:1, 5:1, and 6:1 Neptunian mean motion resonances. These stable populations are often neglected in other studies. We predict the existence of an Earth-like planet and several TNOs on peculiar orbits in the outer solar system, which can serve as observationally testable signatures of the putative planet's perturbations., Comment: This is the Accepted Manuscript version of an article accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal. IOP Publishing Ltd is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it. This Accepted Manuscript is published under a CC BY licence. The Version of Record is available online at https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aceaf0

The terrestrial planets formed by accretion of asteroid-like objects within the inner solar system's protoplanetary disk. Previous works have found that forming a small-mass Mars requires the disk to contain little mass beyond ~1.5 au (i.e., the disk mass was concentrated within this boundary). The asteroid belt also holds crucial information about the origin of such a narrow disk. Several scenarios may produce a narrow disk. However, simultaneously replicating the four terrestrial planets and the inner solar system properties remains elusive. Here, we found that chaotic excitation of disk objects generated by a near-resonant configuration of Jupiter-Saturn can create a narrow disk, allowing the formation of the terrestrial planets and the asteroid belt. Our simulations showed that this mechanism could typically deplete a massive disk beyond ~1.5 au on a 5-10 Myr timescale. The resulting terrestrial systems reproduced the current orbits and masses of Venus, Earth and Mars. Adding an inner region disk component within ~0.8-0.9 au allowed several terrestrial systems to simultaneously form analogues of the four terrestrial planets. Our terrestrial systems also frequently satisfied additional constraints: Moon-forming giant impacts occurring after a median ~30-55 Myr, late impactors represented by disk objects formed within 2 au, and effective water delivery during the first 10-20 Myr of Earth's formation. Finally, our model asteroid belt explained the asteroid belt's orbital structure, small mass and taxonomy (S-, C- and D/P-types)., Comment: Accepted for publication in Scientific Reports. 71 pages, 12 figures, and 5 tables

Rotation periods of 53 small (diameters $2 < D < 40$ km) Jupiter Trojans (JTs) were derived using the high-cadence light curves obtained by the FOSSIL phase I survey, a Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam intensive program. These are the first reported periods measured for JTs with $D < 10$ km. We found a lower limit of the rotation period near 4 hr, instead of the previously published result of 5 hr (Ryan et al. 2017; Szabo et al. 2017, 2020) found for larger JTs. Assuming a rubble-pile structure for JTs, a bulk density of 0.9 gcm$^{-3}$ is required to withstand this spin rate limit, consistent with the value $0.8-1.0$ gcm$^{-3}$ (Marchis et al. 2006; Mueller et al. 2010; Buie et al. 2015; Berthier et al. 2020) derived from the binary JT system, (617) Patroclus-Menoetius system., Comment: Accepted by PSJ on July 9th, 2021. 15 pages, 7 figures, and 3 tables

The minor planets on orbits that are dynamically stable in Neptune's 1:1 resonance on Gyr timescales were likely emplaced by Neptune's outward migration. We explore the intrinsic libration amplitude, eccentricity, and inclination distribution of Neptune's stable Trojans, using the detections and survey efficiency of the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS) and Pan-STARRS1. We find that the libration amplitude of the stable Neptunian Trojan population can be well modeled as a Rayleigh distribution with a libration amplitude width $\sigma_{A_phi}$ of 15$^\circ$. When taken as a whole, the Neptune Trojan population can be acceptably modeled with a Rayleigh eccentricity distribution of width $\sigma_e$ of 0.045 and a typical sin(i) x Gaussian inclination distribution with a width $\sigma_i$ of 14 +/- 2 degrees. However, these distributions are only marginally acceptable. This is likely because, even after accounting for survey detection biases, the known large Hr < 8 and small Hr >= 8 Neptune Trojans appear to have markedly different eccentricities and inclinations. We propose that like the classical Kuiper belt, the stable intrinsic Neptunian Trojan population have dynamically `hot' and dynamically `cold' components to its eccentricity/inclination distribution, with $\sigma_{e-cold}$ ~ 0.02 / $\sigma_{i-cold}$ ~ 6$^\circ$ and $\sigma_{e-hot}$~ 0.05 / $\sigma_{i-hot}$ ~ 18$^\circ$. In this scenario, the `cold' L4 Neptunian Trojan population lacks the Hr >= 8 members and has 13 +11/-6 `cold' Trojans with Hr < 8. On the other hand, the `hot' L4 Neptunian Trojan population has 136 +57/-48 Trojans with Hr < 10 -- a population 2.4 times greater than that of the L4 Jovian Trojans in the same luminosity range., Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, v3, accepted for publication in Icarus

A successful solar system model must reproduce the four terrestrial planets. Here, we focus on 1) the likelihood of forming Mercury and the four terrestrial planets in the same system (a 4-P system); 2) the orbital properties and masses of each terrestrial planet; and 3) the timing of Earth's last giant impact and the mass accreted by our planet thereafter. Addressing these constraints, we performed 450 N-body simulations of terrestrial planet formation based on narrow protoplanetary disks with mass confined to 0.7-1.0 au. We identified 164 analogue systems, but only 24 systems contained Mercury analogues, and eight systems were 4-P ones. We found that narrow disks containing a small number of embryos with individual masses comparable to that of Mars and the giant planets on their current orbits yielded the best prospects for satisfying those constraints. However, serious shortcomings remain. The formation of Mercury analogues and 4-P systems was too inefficient (5% and 2%, respectively), and most Venus-to-Earth analogue mass ratios were incorrect. Mercury and Venus analogues also formed too close to each other (~0.15-0.21 au) compared to reality (0.34 au). Similarly, the mutual distances between the Venus and Earth analogues were greater than those observed (0.34 vs. 0.28 au). Furthermore, the Venus-Earth pair was not reproduced in orbital-mass space statistically. Overall, our results suggest serious problems with using narrow disks to explain the inner solar system. In particular, the formation of Mercury remains an outstanding problem for terrestrial planet formation models., Comment: 25 pages, 4 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Resonant dynamics plays a significant role in the past evolution and current state of our outer Solar System. The population ratios and spatial distribution of Neptune's resonant populations are direct clues to understanding the history of our planetary system. The orbital structure of the objects in Neptune's 2:1 mean-motion resonance (\emph{twotinos}) has the potential to be a tracer of planetary migration processes. Different migration processes produce distinct architectures, recognizable by well-characterized surveys. However, previous characterized surveys only discovered a few twotinos, making it impossible to model the intrinsic twotino population. With a well-designed cadence and nearly 100\% tracking success, the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS) discovered 838 trans-Neptunian objects, of which 34 are securely twotinos with well-constrained libration angles and amplitudes. We use the OSSOS twotinos and the survey characterization parameters via the OSSOS Survey Simulator to inspect the intrinsic population and orbital distributions of twotino. The estimated twotino population, 4400$^{+1500}_{-1100}$ with $H_r<8.66$ (diameter$\sim$100km) at 95\% confidence, is consistent with the previous low-precision estimate. We also constrain the width of the inclination distribution to a relatively narrow value of $\sigma_i$=6$^\circ$$^{+1}_{-1}$, and find the eccentricity distribution is consistent with a Gaussian centered on $e_\mathrm{c}=0.275$ with a width $e_\mathrm{w}=0.06$. We find a single-slope exponential luminosity function with $\alpha=0.6$ for the twotinos. Finally, we for the first time meaningfully constrain the fraction of symmetric twotinos, and the ratio of the leading asymmetric islands; both fractions are in a range of 0.2--0.6. These measurements rule out certain theoretical models of Neptune's migration history., Comment: 23 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal

To reproduce the orbits and masses of the terrestrial planets (analogs) of the solar system, most studies scrutinize simulations for success as a batch. However, there is insufficient discussion in the literature on the likelihood of forming planet analogs simultaneously in the same system (analog system). To address this issue, we performed 540 N-body simulations of protoplanetary disks representative of typical models in the literature. We identified a total of 194 analog systems containing at least three analogs, but only 17 systems simultaneously contained analogs of the four terrestrial planets. From an analysis of our analog systems, we found that, compared to the real planets, truncated disks based on typical outcomes of the Grand Tack model produced analogs of Mercury and Mars that were too dynamically cold and located too close to the Venus and Earth analogs. Additionally, all the Mercury analogs were too massive, while most of the Mars analogs were more massive than Mars. Furthermore, the timing of the Moon-forming impact was too early in these systems, and the amount of additional mass accreted after the event was too great. Therefore, such truncated disks cannot explain the formation of the terrestrial planets. Our results suggest that forming the four terrestrial planets requires disks with the following properties: 1) Mass concentrated in narrow core regions between ~0.7-0.9 and ~1.0-1.2 au; 2) an inner region component starting at ~0.3-0.4 au; 3) a less massive component beginning at ~1.0-1.2 au; 4) embryos rather than planetesimals carrying most of the disk mass; and 5) Jupiter and Saturn placed on eccentric orbits., Comment: 42 pages, 5 figures, 8 tables. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal (Version with a few corrections after checking the proof)

Centaurs have orbits between Jupiter and Neptune and are thought to originate from the trans-Neptunian region. Observations of surface properties of Centaurs and comparison with those of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) would provide constraints on their origin and evolution. We analyzed imaging data of nine known Centaurs observed by the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) installed on the Subaru Telescope with the g and i band filters. Using the data available in the public HSC data archive as well as those obtained by the HSC Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP) by the end of June, 2017, we obtained the g-i colors of the nine Centaurs. We compared them with those of known TNOs in the HSC-SSP data obtained by Terai et al. (2018). We found that the color distribution of the nine Centaurs is similar to that of those TNOs with high orbital inclinations, but distinct from those TNOs with low orbital inclinations. We also examined correlations between the colors of these Centaurs and their orbital elements and absolute magnitude. The Centaurs' colors show a moderate positive correlation with semi-major axis, while no significant correlations between the color and other orbital elements or absolute magnitude were found for these Centaurs. On the other hand, recent studies on Centaurs with larger samples show interesting correlations between their color and absolute magnitude or orbital inclination. We discuss how our data fit in these previous studies, and also discuss implications of these results for their origin and evolution., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan

The Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS), a wide-field imaging program in 2013-2017 with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, surveyed 155 deg$^{2}$ of sky to depths of $m_r = 24.1$-25.2. We present 838 outer Solar System discoveries that are entirely free of ephemeris bias. This increases the inventory of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) with accurately known orbits by nearly 50%. Each minor planet has 20-60 Gaia/Pan-STARRS-calibrated astrometric measurements made over 2-5 oppositions, which allows accurate classification of their orbits within the trans-Neptunian dynamical populations. The populations orbiting in mean-motion resonance with Neptune are key to understanding Neptune's early migration. Our 313 resonant TNOs, including 132 plutinos, triple the available characterized sample and include new occupancy of distant resonances out to semi-major axis $a \sim 130$ au. OSSOS doubles the known population of the non-resonant Kuiper belt, providing 436 TNOs in this region, all with exceptionally high-quality orbits of $a$ uncertainty $\sigma_{a} \leq 0.1\%$; they show the belt exists from $a \gtrsim 37$ au, with a lower perihelion bound of $35$ au. We confirm the presence of a concentrated low-inclination $a\simeq 44$ au "kernel" population and a dynamically cold population extending beyond the 2:1 resonance. We finely quantify the survey's observational biases. Our survey simulator provides a straightforward way to impose these biases on models of the trans-Neptunian orbit distributions, allowing statistical comparison to the discoveries. The OSSOS TNOs, unprecedented in their orbital precision for the size of the sample, are ideal for testing concepts of the history of giant planet migration in the Solar System., Comment: Invited paper, special issue Data: Insights and Challenges in a Time of Abundance. Data tables and example survey simulator are in the supplementary materials (see arXiv source under Downloads > Other formats)

We discuss the detection in the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS) of two objects in Neptune's distant 9:1 mean motion resonance at semimajor axis $a\approx~130$~au. Both objects are securely resonant on 10~Myr timescales, with one securely in the 9:1 resonance's leading asymmetric libration island and the other in either the symmetric or trailing asymmetric island. These objects are the largest semimajor axis objects with secure resonant classifications, and their detection in a carefully characterized survey allows for the first robust resonance population estimate beyond 100~au. The detection of these objects implies a 9:1 resonance population of $1.1\times10^4$ objects with $H_r<8.66$ ($D~\gtrsim~100$~km) on similar orbits (95\% confidence range of $\sim0.4-3\times10^4$). Integrations over 4~Gyr of an ensemble of clones spanning these objects' orbit fit uncertainties reveal that they both have median resonance occupation timescales of $\sim1$~Gyr. These timescales are consistent with the hypothesis that these objects originate in the scattering population but became transiently stuck to Neptune's 9:1 resonance within the last $\sim1$~Gyr of solar system evolution. Based on simulations of a model of the current scattering population, we estimate the expected resonance sticking population in the 9:1 resonance to be 1000-4500 objects with $H_r<8.66$; this is marginally consistent with the OSSOS 9:1 population estimate. We conclude that resonance sticking is a plausible explanation for the observed 9:1 population, but we also discuss the possibility of a primordial 9:1 population, which would have interesting implications for the Kuiper belt's dynamical history., Comment: accepted for publication in AJ

We present a visible multi-band photometry of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) observed by the Subaru Telescope in the framework of Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP) from March in 2014 to September in 2016. We measured the five broad-band (g, r, i, z, and Y) colors over the wavelength range from 0.4 um to 1.0 um for 30 known TNOs using the HSC-SSP survey data covering ~500 deg2 of sky within +/-30 deg of ecliptic latitude. This dataset allows us to characterize the dynamical classes based on visible reflectance spectra as well as to examine the relationship between colors and the other parameters such as orbital elements. Our results show that the hot classical and scattered populations share similar color distributions, while the cold classical population has a reflective decrease toward shorter wavelength below the i band. Based on the obtained color properties, we found that the TNO sample examined in the present work can be separated into two groups by inclination (I), the low-I population consisting of cold classical objects and high-I population consisting of hot classical and scattered objects. The whole sample exhibits an anti-correlation between colors and inclination, but no significant correlation between colors and semi-major axis, perihelion distance, eccentricity, or absolute magnitude. The color-inclination correlation does not seem to be continuous over the entire inclination range. Rather, it is seen only in the high-I population. We found that the low- and high-I populations are distinguishable in the g-i vs. eccentricity plot, but four high-I objects show g-i colors similar to those of the low-I population. If we exclude these four objects, the high-I objects show a positive correlation between g-i and eccentricity and a negative correlation between g-i and inclination with high significance levels., Comment: 29 pages, 11 figure, 5 tables, submitted to HSC special issue in PASJ

The formation of the four terrestrial planets of the solar system is one of the most fundamental problems in the planetary sciences. However, the formation of Mercury remains poorly understood. We investigated terrestrial planet formation by performing 110 high-resolution N-body simulation runs using more than 100 embryos and 6000 disk planetesimals representing a primordial protoplanetary disk. To investigate the formation of Mercury, these simulations considered an inner region of the disk at 0.2-0.5 au (the Mercury region) and disks with and without mass enhancements beyond the ice line location, aIL, in the disk, where aIL = 1.5, 2.25, and 3.0 au were tested. Although Venus and Earth analogs (considering both orbits and masses) successfully formed in the majority of the runs, Mercury analogs were obtained in only nine runs. Mars analogs were also similarly scarce. Our Mercury analogs concentrated at orbits with a ~ 0.27-0.34 au, relatively small eccentricities/inclinations, and median mass m ~ 0.2 Earth masses. In addition, we found that our Mercury analogs acquired most of their final masses from embryos/planetesimals initially located between 0.2 and ~1-1.5 au within 10 Myr, while the remaining mass came from a wider region up to ~3 au at later times. Although the ice line was negligible in the formation of planets located in the Mercury region, it enriched all terrestrial planets with water. Indeed, Mercury analogs showed a wide range of water mass fractions at the end of terrestrial planet formation., Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

We report the discovery and orbit of a new dwarf planet candidate, 2015 RR$_{245}$, by the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS). 2015 RR$_{245}$'s orbit is eccentric ($e=0.586$), with a semi-major axis near 82 au, yielding a perihelion distance of 34 au. 2015 RR$_{245}$ has $g-r = 0.59 \pm 0.11$ and absolute magnitude $H_{r} = 3.6 \pm 0.1$; for an assumed albedo of $p_V = 12$% the object has a diameter of $\sim670$ km. Based on astrometric measurements from OSSOS and Pan-STARRS1, we find that 2015 RR$_{245}$ is securely trapped on ten-Myr timescales in the 9:2 mean-motion resonance with Neptune. It is the first TNO identified in this resonance. On hundred-Myr timescales, particles in 2015 RR$_{245}$-like orbits depart and sometimes return to the resonance, indicating that 2015 RR$_{245}$ likely forms part of the long-lived metastable population of distant TNOs that drift between resonance sticking and actively scattering via gravitational encounters with Neptune. The discovery of a 9:2 TNO stresses the role of resonances in the long-term evolution of objects in the scattering disk, and reinforces the view that distant resonances are heavily populated in the current Solar System. This object further motivates detailed modelling of the transient sticking population., Comment: Accepted to AJ

The first two observational sky "blocks" of the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS) have significantly increased the number of well-characterized observed trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) in Neptune's mean motion resonances. We describe the 31 securely resonant TNOs detected by OSSOS so far, and we use them to independently verify the resonant population models from the Canada-France Ecliptic Plane Survey (CFEPS; Gladman et al. 2012), with which we find broad agreement. We confirm that the 5:2 resonance is more populated than models of the outer Solar System's dynamical history predict; our minimum population estimate shows that the high eccentricity (e>0.35) portion of the resonance is at least as populous as the 2:1 and possibly as populated as the 3:2 resonance. One OSSOS block was well-suited to detecting objects trapped at low libration amplitudes in Neptune's 3:2 resonance, a population of interest in testing the origins of resonant TNOs. We detected three 3:2 objects with libration amplitudes below the cutoff modeled by CFEPS; OSSOS thus offers new constraints on this distribution. The OSSOS detections confirm that the 2:1 resonance has a dynamically colder inclination distribution than either the 3:2 or 5:2 resonances. Using the combined OSSOS and CFEPS 2:1 detections, we constrain the fraction of 2:1 objects in the symmetric mode of libration to be 0.2-0.85; we also constrain the fraction of leading vs. trailing asymmetric librators, which has been theoretically predicted to vary depending on Neptune's migration history, to be 0.05-0.8. Future OSSOS blocks will improve these constraints., Comment: Accepted for publication in AJ

The Neptune Trojans are the most recent addition to the panoply of Solar system small body populations. The orbit of the first discovered member, 2001 QR$_{322}$, was investigated shortly after its discovery, based on early observations of the object, and it was found to be dynamically stable on timescales comparable to the age of the Solar system. As further observations were obtained of the object over the following years, the best-fit solution for its orbit changed. We therefore carried out a new study of 2001 QR$_{322}$'s orbit in 2010, finding that it lay on the boundary between dynamically stable and unstable regions in Neptune's Trojan cloud, and concluding that further observations were needed to determine the true stability of the object's orbit. Here we follow up on that earlier work, and present the preliminary results of a dynamical study using an updated fit to 2001 QR$_{322}$'s orbit. Despite the improved precision with which the orbit of 2001 QR$_{322}$ is known, we find that the best-fit solution remains balanced on a knife-edge, lying between the same regions of stability and instability noted in our earlier work. In the future, we intend to carry out new observations that should hopefully refine the orbit to an extent that its true nature can finally be disentangled., Comment: 10 pages; 2 figures; 1 table; accepted to the peer-reviewed proceedings of the 15th Australian Space Research Conference

We report the discovery, tracking and detection circumstances for 85 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) from the first 42 deg$^{2}$ of the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS). This ongoing $r$-band Solar System survey uses the 0.9 deg$^{2}$ field-of-view MegaPrime camera on the 3.6 m Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Our orbital elements for these TNOs are precise to a fractional semi-major axis uncertainty $<0.1\%$. We achieve this precision in just two oppositions, as compared to the normal 3-5 oppositions, via a dense observing cadence and innovative astrometric technique. These discoveries are free of ephemeris bias, a first for large trans-Neptunian surveys. We also provide the necessary information to enable models of TNO orbital distributions to be tested against our TNO sample. We confirm the existence of a cold "kernel" of objects within the main cold classical Kuiper belt, and infer the existence of an extension of the "stirred" cold classical Kuiper belt to at least several AU beyond the 2:1 mean motion resonance with Neptune. We find that the population model of Petit et al. (2011) remains a plausible representation of the Kuiper belt. The full survey, to be completed in 2017, will provide an exquisitely characterized sample of important resonant TNO populations, ideal for testing models of giant planet migration during the early history of the Solar System., Comment: Accepted to AJ, 27 April 2016. 59 pp

The newly formed giant planets may have migrated and crossed a number of mutual mean motion resonances (MMRs) when smaller objects (embryos) were accreting to form the terrestrial planets. We investigated the effects of the planetesimal-driven migration of Jupiter and Saturn, and the influence of their mutual 1:2 MMR crossing on terrestrial planet formation for the first time, by performing N-body simulations. These simulations considered distinct timescales of MMR crossing and planet migration. In total, 68 high-resolution simulation runs using 2000 disk planetesimals were performed, which was a significant improvement on previously published results. Even when the effects of the 1:2 MMR crossing and planet migration were included in the system, Venus and Earth analogs (considering both orbits and masses) successfully formed in several runs. In addition, we found that the orbits of planetesimals beyond a ~1.5-2 AU were dynamically depleted by the strengthened sweeping secular resonances associated with Jupiter's and Saturn's more eccentric orbits (relative to present-day) during planet migration. However, this depletion did not prevent the formation of massive Mars analogs (planets with more than 1.5 times Mars' mass). Although late MMR crossings (at t > 30 Myr) could remove such planets, Mars-like small mass planets survived on overly excited orbits (high e and/or i), or were completely lost in these systems. We conclude that the orbital migration and crossing of the mutual 1:2 MMR of Jupiter and Saturn are unlikely to provide suitable orbital conditions for the formation of solar system terrestrial planets. This suggests that to explain Mars' small mass and the absence of other planets between Mars and Jupiter, the outer asteroid belt must have suffered a severe depletion due to interactions with Jupiter/Saturn, or by an alternative mechanism (e.g., rogue super-Earths)., Comment: 32 pages, 11 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in ApJ (Proof corrected version)

It is now accepted that the Solar system's youth was a dynamic and chaotic time. The giant planets migrated significant distances to reach their current locations, and evidence of that migration's influence on the Solar system abounds. That migration's pace, and the distance over which it occurred, is still heavily debated. Some models feature systems in which the giant planets were initially in an extremely compact configuration, in which Uranus and Neptune are chaotically scattered into the outer Solar system. Others feature architectures that were initially more relaxed, and smoother, more sedate migration. To determine which of these scenarios best represents the formation of our Solar system, we must turn to the structure of the system's small body populations, in which the scars of that migration are still clearly visible. We present the first results of a program investigating the effect of giant planet migration on the reservoirs of small bodies that existed at that time. As the planets migrate, they stir these reservoirs, scattering vast numbers of small bodies onto dynamically unstable orbits in the outer Solar system. The great majority of those bodies are rapidly removed from the system, through collisions and ejections, but a small number become captured as planetary Trojans or irregular satellites. Others are driven by the migration, leading to a significant sculpting of the asteroid belt and trans-Neptunian region. The capture and retention efficiencies to these stable reservoirs depend on the particular migration scenario used. Advocates of chaotic migration from an initially compact scenario argue that smoother, more sedate migration cannot explain the observed populations of Trojans and irregular satellites. Our results draw a strikingly different picture, revealing that such smooth migration is perfectly capable of reproducing the observed populations., Comment: 13 pages, accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed proceedings of the 12th annual Australian Space Science Conference

Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) are icy/rocky bodies that move beyond the orbit of Neptune in a region known as the trans-Neptunian belt (or Edgeworth-Kuiper belt). In contrast to the predictions of accretion models that feature protoplanetary disk planetesimals evolving on dynamically cold orbits (with both very small eccentricities, e, and inclinations, i), in reality TNOs exhibit surprisingly wide ranges of orbital eccentricities and inclinations. Several theoretical models have addressed the origin and orbital evolution of the main dynamical classes of TNOs, but none have successfully reproduced them all. In addition, none have explained several objects on peculiar orbits, or provided insightful predictions, without which a model cannot be tested properly against observations. Based on extensive simulations of planetesimal disks with the presence of the four giant planets and huge numbers of modeled planetesimals, I explore in detail the dynamics of the TNOs, in particular their (un)stable regions over timescales comparable to the age of the solar system, and the role of resonances across the entire trans-Neptunian region. I also propose that, along with the orbital history of the giant planets, the orbital evolution of primordial embryos (massive planetesimals comparable to Mars-Earth masses) can explain the fine orbital structure of the trans-Neptunian belt, the orbits of Jovian and Neptunian Trojans, and possibly the current orbits of the giant planets. Those primordial embryos were ultimately scattered by the giant planets, a process that stirred both the orbits of the giant planets and the primordial planetesimal disk to the levels observed at 40-50 AU. In particular, the main constraints provided by the trans-Neptunian belt are optimally satisfied if at least one such primordial embryo (planetoid) survived in the outskirts of the solar system., Comment: 112 pages, 28 figures, accepted for publication in Monographs on Environment, Earth and Planets. (The abstract was shortened. Original version can be found in the pdf file)

We have performed a detailed dynamical study of the recently identified Neptunian Trojan 2004 KV18, only the second object to be discovered librating around Neptune's trailing Lagrange point, L5. We find that 2004 KV18 is moving on a highly unstable orbit, and was most likely captured from the Centaur population at some point in the last ~1 Myr, having originated in the Scattered Disk, beyond the orbit of Neptune. The instability of 2004 KV18 is so great that many of the test particles studied leave the Neptunian Trojan cloud within just ~0.1 - 0.3 Myr, and it takes just 37 million years for half of the 91125 test particles created to study its dynamical behaviour to be removed from the Solar system entirely. Unlike the other Neptunian Trojans previously found to display dynamical instability on hundred million year timescales (2001 QR322 and 2008 LC18), 2004 KV18 displays such extreme instability that it must be a temporarily captured Trojan, rather than a primordial member of the Neptunian Trojan population. As such, it offers a fascinating insight into the processes through which small bodies are transferred around the outer Solar system, and represents an exciting addition to the menagerie of the Solar system's small bodies., Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 12th July 2012

The Neptune Trojans are the most recently discovered population of small bodies in the Solar System. To date, only eight have been discovered, though it is thought likely that the total population at least rivals that of the asteroid belt. Their origin is still the subject of some debate. Here, we detail the results of dynamical studies of two Neptune Trojans, 2001 QR322 and 2008 LC18. We find that both objects lie very close to boundaries between dynamically stable and unstable regions, with a significant probability that either or both of the objects are actually unstable on timescales of a few hundred million years. Such instability supports the idea that at least these two Neptune Trojans are dynamically captured objects, rather than objects that formed in situ. This that does not, however, rule out the possibility that these two objects were captured during Neptune's proposed post-formation migration, and have remained as Trojans ever since., Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, Accepted to appear in the peer-reviewed proceedings of the 11th annual Australian Space Science Conference

Recently, the first collisional family was identified in the trans-Neptunian belt. The family consists of Haumea and at least ten other ~100km-sized trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) located in the region a = 42 - 44.5 AU. In this work, we model the long-term orbital evolution of an ensemble of fragments representing hypothetical post-collision distributions at the time of the family's birth. We consider three distinct scenarios, in which the kinetic energy of dispersed particles were varied such that their mean ejection velocities (veje) were of order 200 m/s, 300 m/s and 400 m/s, respectively. Each simulation considered resulted in collisional families that reproduced that currently observed. The results suggest that 60-75% of the fragments created in the collision will remain in the trans-Neptunian belt, even after 4 Gyr of dynamical evolution. The surviving particles were typically concentrated in wide regions of orbital element space centred on the initial impact location, with their orbits spread across a region spanning {\Delta}a ~ 6-12 AU, {\Delta}e ~ 0.1-0.15 and {\Delta}i ~ 7-10{\deg}. Most of the survivors populated the so-called Classical and Detached regions of the trans-Neptunian belt, whilst a minor fraction entered the Scattered Disk reservoir (<1%), or were captured in Neptunian mean motion resonances (<10%). In addition, except for those fragments located near strong resonances, the great majority displayed negligible long-term orbital variation. This implies that the orbital distribution of the intrinsic Haumean family can be used to constrain the orbital conditions and physical nature of the collision that created the family, billions of years ago. Indeed, our results suggest that the formation of the Haumean collisional family most likely occurred after the bulk of Neptune's migration was complete, or even some time after the migration had completely ceased., Comment: 38 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS (The abstract was shortened. Original version can be found in the pdf file)

We present results examining the fate of the Trojan clouds produced in our previous work. We find that the stability of Neptunian Trojans seems to be strongly correlated to their initial post-migration orbital elements, with those objects that survive as Trojans for billions of years displaying negligible orbital evolution. The great majority of these survivors began the integrations with small eccentricities (e < 0.2) and small libration amplitudes (A < 30 - 40{\deg}). The survival rate of "pre-formed" Neptunian Trojans (which in general survived on dynamically cold orbits (e < 0.1, i < 5 - 10{\deg})) varied between ~5 and 70%. By contrast, the survival rate of "captured" Trojans (on final orbits spread across a larger region of e-i element space) were markedly lower, ranging between 1 and 10% after 4 Gyr. Taken in concert with our earlier work, we note that planetary formation scenarios which involve the slow migration (a few tens of millions of years) of Neptune from an initial planetary architecture that is both resonant and compact (aN < 18 AU) provide the most promising fit of those we considered to the observed Trojan population. In such scenarios, we find that the current day Trojan population would number ~1% of that which was present at the end of the planet's migration, with the bulk being sourced from captured, rather than pre-formed objects. We note, however, that even those scenarios still fail to reproduce the currently observed portion of the Neptune Trojan population moving on orbits with e < 0.1 but i > 20{\deg}. Dynamical integrations of the currently observed Trojans show that five out of the seven are dynamically stable on 4 Gyr timescales, while 2001 QR322, exhibits significant dynamical instability. The seventh Trojan object, 2008 LC18, has such large orbital uncertainties that only future studies will be able to determine its stability., Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS (The abstract was shortened. Original version can be found in the pdf file)

We present a short review of the impact regime experienced by the terrestrial planets within our own Solar system, describing the three populations of potentially hazardous objects which move on orbits that take them through the inner Solar system. Of these populations, the origins of two (the Near-Earth Asteroids and the Long-Period Comets) are well understood, with members originating in the Asteroid belt and Oort cloud, respectively. By contrast, the source of the third population, the Short-Period Comets, is still under debate. The proximate source of these objects is the Centaurs, a population of dynamically unstable objects that pass perihelion between the orbits of Jupiter and Neptune. However, a variety of different origins have been suggested for the Centaur population. Here, we present evidence that at least a significant fraction of the Centaur population can be sourced from the planetary Trojan clouds, stable reservoirs of objects moving in 1:1 mean-motion resonance with the giant planets (primarily Jupiter and Neptune). Focusing on simulations of the Neptunian Trojan population, we show that an ongoing flux of objects should be leaving that region to move on orbits within the Centaur population. With conservative estimates of the flux from the Neptunian Trojan clouds, we show that their contribution to that population could be of order ~3%, while more realistic estimates suggest that the Neptune Trojans could even be the main source of fresh Centaurs. We suggest that further observational work is needed to constrain the contribution made by the Neptune Trojans to the ongoing flux of material to the inner Solar system, and believe that future studies of the habitability of exoplanetary systems should take care not to neglect the contribution of resonant objects (such as planetary Trojans) to the impact flux that could be experienced by potentially habitable worlds., Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, published in the International Journal of Astrobiology (the arXiv.org's abstract was shortened, but the original one can be found in the manuscript file)

Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) are remnants of a collisionally and dynamically evolved planetesimal disk in the outer solar system. This complex structure, known as the trans-Neptunian belt (or Edgeworth-Kuiper belt), can reveal important clues about disk properties, planet formation, and other evolutionary processes. In contrast to the predictions of accretion theory, TNOs exhibit surprisingly large eccentricities, e, and inclinations, i, which can be grouped into distinct dynamical classes. Several models have addressed the origin and orbital evolution of TNOs, but none have reproduced detailed observations, e.g., all dynamical classes and peculiar objects, or provided insightful predictions. Based on extensive simulations of planetesimal disks with the presence of the four giant planets and massive planetesimals, we propose that the orbital history of an outer planet with tenths of Earth's mass can explain the trans-Neptunian belt orbital structure. This massive body was likely scattered by one of the giant planets, which then stirred the primordial planetesimal disk to the levels observed at 40-50 AU and truncated it at about 48 AU before planet migration. The outer planet later acquired an inclined stable orbit (>100 AU; 20-40 deg) because of a resonant interaction with Neptune (an r:1 or r:2 resonance possibly coupled with the Kozai mechanism), guaranteeing the stability of the trans-Neptunian belt. Our model consistently reproduces the main features of each dynamical class with unprecedented detail; it also satisfies other constraints such as the current small total mass of the trans-Neptunian belt and Neptune's current orbit at 30.1 AU. We also provide observationally testable predictions., Comment: 80 pages, 24 figures, 7 tables. Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal

We investigate the dynamical evolution of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) in typical scattered disk orbits (scattered TNOs) by performing simulations using several thousand particles lying initially on Neptune-encountering orbits. We explore the role of resonance sticking in the scattered disk, a phenomenon characterized by multiple temporary resonance captures ('resonances' refers to external mean motion resonances with Neptune, which can be described in the form r:s, where the arguments r and s are integers). First, all scattered TNOs evolve through intermittent temporary resonance capture events and gravitational scattering by Neptune. Each scattered TNO experiences tens to hundreds of resonance captures over a period of 4 Gyr, which represents about 38% of the object's lifetime (mean value). Second, resonance sticking plays an important role at semimajor axes a < 250 AU, where the great majority of such captures occurred. It is noteworthy that the stickiest (i.e., dominant) resonances in the scattered disk are located within this distance range and are those possessing the lowest argument s. This was evinced by r:1, r:2 and r:3 resonances, which played the greatest role during resonance sticking evolution, often leading to captures in several of their neighboring resonances. Finally, the timescales and likelihood of temporary resonance captures are roughly proportional to resonance strength. The dominance of low s resonances is also related to the latter. In sum, resonance sticking has an important impact on the evolution of scattered TNOs, contributing significantly to the longevity of these objects., Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in Icarus (authors minor information fixed)

We report the discovery, tracking, and detection circumstances for 85 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) from the first 42 square degrees of the Outer Solar System Origins Survey. This ongoing r-band solar system survey uses the 0.9 square degree field of view MegaPrime camera on the 3.6 meter Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Our orbital elements for these TNOs are precise to a fractional semimajor axis uncertainty of less than 0.1 percent. We achieve this precision in just two oppositions, as compared to the normal three to five oppositions, via a dense observing cadence and innovative astrometric technique. These discoveries are free of ephemeris bias, a first for large trans-Neptunian surveys. We also provide the necessary information to enable models of TNO orbital distributions to be tested against our TNO sample. We confirm the existence of a cold "kernel" of objects within the main cold classical Kuiper Belt and infer the existence of an extension of the "stirred" cold classical Kuiper Belt to at least several au beyond the 2:1 mean motion resonance with Neptune. We find that the population model of Petit et al. remains a plausible representation of the Kuiper Belt. The full survey, to be completed in 2017, will provide an exquisitely characterized sample of important resonant TNO populations, ideal for testing models of giant planet migration during the early history of the solar system.