HST observations of faint Cold Classical KBOs
Abstract
The size distribution of the known Kuiper Belt Objects has been described by a double power law, with a break at R magnitude 25. There are two leading interpretations to this break: 1) It is the result of the collisional evolution, with the objects smaller than the break being the population most affected by collisional erosion. 2) The size distribution break is primordial, set during the Kuiper Belt formation.The low inclination KBOs, the Cold Classical population, is thought to have been dynamically isolated since the formation of the Solar System, and thus only collisions between Cold Classicals would have affected their size distribution. If the distribution is collisional, it probes parameters of the Kuiper Belt history: strengths of the bodies, impact energies and frequency, and the the number of objects. If the distribution is primordial, it reveals parameters of the Kuiper Belt accretion, as well as limits on its subsequent collisional history.We obtained HST observations of 16 faint Cold Classicals, which we combine with archival HST observations of 20 others, to examine the distribution of two properties of the smallest KBOs: colors and binary fraction. These properties can differentiate between a primordial and a collisional origin of the size distribution break. If the smaller bodies have been through extensive collisional evolution, they will have exposed materials from their interiors, which has not been exposed to weathering, and thus should be bluer than the old surfaces of the larger bodies. Another constraint can be derived from the fraction of binary objects: the angular momentum of the observed binaries is typically too high to result from collisions, thus a collisionally-evolved population would have a lower binary fraction, due to the easier separation of binaries, compared to the disruption of similar-sized bodies, and the easier disruption of the binary components, due to the smaller size.We present the constraints to the color and binary fraction distributions we obtained from observations probing probe the smallest observable KBOs.Support for programs 13031 and 13716 was provided by NASA through a grant from STScI.
- Publication:
-
AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts #48
- Pub Date:
- October 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016DPS....4812020P