27 research outputs found
Dust Environment Model of the Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov
2I/Borisov is the first interstellar comet discovered on 2019 August 30, and it soon showed a coma and a dust tail. This study reports the results of images obtained at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo telescope, on La Palma - Canary Islands, in 2019 November and December. The images have been obtained with the R filter in order to apply our dust tail model. The model has been applied to the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and compared to the Rosetta dust measurements showing a very good agreement. It has been applied to the comet 2I/Borisov, using almost the same parameters, obtaining a dust environment similar to that of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, suggesting that the activity may be very similar. The dust tail analysis provided a dust-loss rate Qd ≍ 35 kg s-1 in 2019 November and Qd ≍ 30 kg s-1 in 2019 December
A large topographic feature on the surface of the trans-Neptunian object (307261) 2002 MS measured from stellar occultations
This work aims at constraining the size, shape, and geometric albedo of the
dwarf planet candidate 2002 MS4 through the analysis of nine stellar
occultation events. Using multichord detection, we also studied the object's
topography by analyzing the obtained limb and the residuals between observed
chords and the best-fitted ellipse. We predicted and organized the
observational campaigns of nine stellar occultations by 2002 MS4 between 2019
and 2022, resulting in two single-chord events, four double-chord detections,
and three events with three to up to sixty-one positive chords. Using 13
selected chords from the 8 August 2020 event, we determined the global
elliptical limb of 2002 MS4. The best-fitted ellipse, combined with the
object's rotational information from the literature, constrains the object's
size, shape, and albedo. Additionally, we developed a new method to
characterize topography features on the object's limb. The global limb has a
semi-major axis of 412 10 km, a semi-minor axis of 385 17 km, and
the position angle of the minor axis is 121 16. From
this instantaneous limb, we obtained 2002 MS4's geometric albedo and the
projected area-equivalent diameter. Significant deviations from the fitted
ellipse in the northernmost limb are detected from multiple sites highlighting
three distinct topographic features: one 11 km depth depression followed by a
25 km height elevation next to a crater-like depression with an
extension of 322 39 km and 45.1 1.5 km deep. Our results present an
object that is 138 km smaller in diameter than derived from thermal
data, possibly indicating the presence of a so-far unknown satellite. However,
within the error bars, the geometric albedo in the V-band agrees with the
results published in the literature, even with the radiometric-derived albedo