A Wide Field Search for Extreme Trans-Neptunian Objects and a Super Earth in the Solar System
Abstract
We are currently conducting the deepest and widest field survey to date sensitive to Extreme Trans-Neptunian Objects (ETNOs), bodies that have semimajor axes greater than 150 au and perihelia higher than 35 au. Our survey is also sensitive to distant super-Earth mass planets such as that recently hypothesized to explain the orbital characteristics of ETNOs.Our survey instruments are Subaru Telescope Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) and the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory Dark Energy Camera (DECam). HSC has a field of view of 1.75 square degrees on an 8 meter diameter telescope and DECam has a field of view of about 3 square degrees on a 4 meter diameter telescope. HSC and DECam are two of the largest light grasp survey tools in the world capable of detecting the hypothesized planet. We have surveyed a few thousand square degrees with DECam (magnitude 24) and HSC (magnitude 25).We probe both specific locations in the sky which are likely to contain the hypothesized planet as well as nearly uniform longitude range in both hemispheres of the sky to minimize the impact of observational bias. We will discuss current survey progress, which to date has found several distant objects beyond 50 au with interesting orbital properties.
- Publication:
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AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts #49
- Pub Date:
- October 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017DPS....4940505T