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The discovery of faint irregular satellites of Uranus |
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| Authors: | JJ Kavelaars MJ Holman T Grav D Milisavljevic BJ Gladman J-M Petit P Rousselot O Mousis PD Nicholson |
| Institution: | a National Research Council of Canada, 5071 West Saanich Road, Victoria, BC V9E 2E7, Canada b Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA c Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8M 4S1, Canada d Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada e Observatoire de Besançon, B.P. 1615, 25010 Besançon Cedex, France f Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA |
| Abstract: | We report the discovery of four new uranian irregular satellites in our deep, mR∼25.4, optical search around that planet. The orbital properties of these satellites are diverse. There is some grouping of inclinations and one of the satellites appears to be inside the Kozai resonant zone of Uranus. Further, we find that the differential size distribution of satellites is rather shallow compared to objects in the asteroid and Kuiper belts, going as ∼r−2.4. We also report a strong coupling between semi-major axis and orbital eccentricity. We comment on the apparent paradox between the inclination grouping, shallow size distribution, and orbital correlation as they relate to the likelihood of a collisional origin for the uranian irregulars. The currently observed irregulars appear to be consistent with a disruptive formation process and a collisional origin for Uranus' obliquity. |
| Keywords: | Irregular satellites Uranus |
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