The Planetary Science Journal (Jan 2023)
Synchronous Rotation in the (136199) Eris–Dysnomia System
- Gary M. Bernstein,
- Bryan J. Holler,
- Rosario Navarro-Escamilla,
- Pedro H. Bernardinelli,
- T. M. C. Abbott,
- M. Aguena,
- S. Allam,
- O. Alves,
- F. Andrade-Oliveira,
- J. Annis,
- D. Bacon,
- D. Brooks,
- D. L. Burke,
- A. Carnero Rosell,
- J. Carretero,
- L. N. da Costa,
- M. E. S. Pereira,
- J. De Vicente,
- S. Desai,
- P. Doel,
- A. Drlica-Wagner,
- S. Everett,
- I. Ferrero,
- J. Frieman,
- J. García-Bellido,
- D. W. Gerdes,
- D. Gruen,
- G. Gutierrez,
- K. Herner,
- S. R. Hinton,
- D. L. Hollowood,
- K. Honscheid,
- D. J. James,
- K. Kuehn,
- N. Kuropatkin,
- J. L. Marshall,
- J. Mena-Fernández,
- R. Miquel,
- R. L. C. Ogando,
- A. Pieres,
- A. A. Plazas Malagón,
- M. Raveri,
- K. Reil,
- E. Sanchez,
- I. Sevilla-Noarbe,
- M. Smith,
- M. Soares-Santos,
- E. Suchyta,
- M. E. C. Swanson,
- P. Wiseman,
- The DES Collaboration
Affiliations
- Gary M. Bernstein
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA ; [email protected]
- Bryan J. Holler
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Rosario Navarro-Escamilla
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA ; [email protected]
- Pedro H. Bernardinelli
- ORCiD
- DIRAC Institute and the Department of Astronomy, University of Washington , 3910 15th Avenue NE, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
- T. M. C. Abbott
- ORCiD
- Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory , Casilla 603, La Serena, Chile
- M. Aguena
- ORCiD
- Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia—LIneA , Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ—20921-400, Brazil
- S. Allam
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA
- O. Alves
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- F. Andrade-Oliveira
- Department of Physics, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- J. Annis
- ORCiD
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA
- D. Bacon
- ORCiD
- Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth , Portsmouth, PO1 3FX, UK
- D. Brooks
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics & Astronomy, University College London , Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK
- D. L. Burke
- ORCiD
- Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics & Cosmology , P.O. Box 2450, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory , Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA
- A. Carnero Rosell
- ORCiD
- Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia—LIneA , Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ—20921-400, Brazil; Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias , E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Universidad de La Laguna , Dpto. Astrofísica, E-38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
- J. Carretero
- ORCiD
- Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE) , The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Campus UAB, E-08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona) Spain
- L. N. da Costa
- ORCiD
- Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia—LIneA , Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ—20921-400, Brazil
- M. E. S. Pereira
- ORCiD
- Hamburger Sternwarte, Universität Hamburg , Gojenbergsweg 112, D-21029 Hamburg, Germany
- J. De Vicente
- ORCiD
- Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas , Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid, Spain
- S. Desai
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, IIT Hyderabad , Kandi, Telangana 502285, India
- P. Doel
- Department of Physics & Astronomy, University College London , Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK
- A. Drlica-Wagner
- ORCiD
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA; Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago , Chicago, IL 60637, USA; Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago , Chicago, IL 60637, USA
- S. Everett
- ORCiD
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology , 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
- I. Ferrero
- ORCiD
- Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics , University of Oslo.P.O. Box 1029 Blindern, NO-0315 Oslo, Norway
- J. Frieman
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA; Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago , Chicago, IL 60637, USA
- J. García-Bellido
- ORCiD
- Instituto de Fisica Teorica UAM/CSIC, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid , E-28049 Madrid, Spain
- D. W. Gerdes
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- D. Gruen
- ORCiD
- University Observatory, Faculty of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität , Scheinerstr. 1, D-81679 Munich, Germany
- G. Gutierrez
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA
- K. Herner
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA
- S. R. Hinton
- ORCiD
- School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland , Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
- D. L. Hollowood
- ORCiD
- Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics , Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
- K. Honscheid
- Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics , The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA; Department of Physics, The Ohio State University , Columbus, OH 43210, USA
- D. J. James
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysics ∣ Harvard & Smithsonian , 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- K. Kuehn
- ORCiD
- Australian Astronomical Optics, Macquarie University , North Ryde, NSW 2113, Australia; Lowell Observatory , 1400 Mars Hill Rd, Flagstaff, AZ 86001, USA
- N. Kuropatkin
- ORCiD
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA
- J. L. Marshall
- George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University , College Station, TX 77843, USA
- J. Mena-Fernández
- ORCiD
- Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas , Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid, Spain
- R. Miquel
- ORCiD
- Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE) , The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Campus UAB, E-08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona) Spain; Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats , E-08010 Barcelona, Spain
- R. L. C. Ogando
- ORCiD
- Observatório Nacional , Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ—20921-400, Brazil
- A. Pieres
- ORCiD
- Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia—LIneA , Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ—20921-400, Brazil; Observatório Nacional , Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ—20921-400, Brazil
- A. A. Plazas Malagón
- ORCiD
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University , Peyton Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
- M. Raveri
- Department of Physics, University of Genova and INFN , Via Dodecaneso 33, I-16146, Genova, Italy
- K. Reil
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory , Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA
- E. Sanchez
- ORCiD
- Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas , Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid, Spain
- I. Sevilla-Noarbe
- Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas , Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid, Spain
- M. Smith
- ORCiD
- School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton , Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
- M. Soares-Santos
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- E. Suchyta
- ORCiD
- Computer Science and Mathematics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory , Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
- M. E. C. Swanson
- ORCiD
- School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton , Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
- P. Wiseman
- School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton , Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
- The DES Collaboration
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/acdd5f
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 4,
no. 6
p. 115
Abstract
We combine photometry of Eris from a 6 month campaign on the Palomar 60 inch telescope in 2015, a 1 month Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 campaign in 2018, and Dark Energy Survey data spanning 2013–2018 to determine a light curve of definitive period 15.771 ± 0.008 days (1 σ formal uncertainties), with nearly sinusoidal shape and peak-to-peak flux variation of 3%. This is consistent at part-per-thousand precision with the P = 15.785 90 ± 0.00005 day sidereal period of Dysnomia’s orbit around Eris, strengthening the recent detection of synchronous rotation of Eris by Szakáts et al. with independent data. Photometry from Gaia are consistent with the same light curve. We detect a slope of 0.05 ± 0.01 mag per degree of Eris’s brightness with respect to illumination phase averaged across g , V , and r bands, intermediate between Pluto’s and Charon’s values. Variations of 0.3 mag are detected in Dysnomia’s brightness, plausibly consistent with a double-peaked light curve at the synchronous period. The synchronous rotation of Eris is consistent with simple tidal models initiated with a giant-impact origin of the binary, but is difficult to reconcile with gravitational capture of Dysnomia by Eris. The high albedo contrast between Eris and Dysnomia remains unexplained in the giant-impact scenario.
Keywords