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Analysis of the ATLAS photometry of the dwarf planets (134340) Pluto and (136199) Eris

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Abstract

This manuscript analyzes forced photometry data of the dwarf planets Pluto and Eris obtained by the ATLAS network between 2015 and 2023 using the o- and c-band filters. The phase curves of Pluto and Eris show no noticeable opposition effect. Eris shows no changes in its absolute magnitudes between 2016 and 2022, and its weighted mean absolute magnitudes are H\(_{o}=-1.35 \pm 0.03\) and H\(_{c}=-1.01 \pm 0.02\). Pluto’s absolute magnitudes in the o and c filters show temporal variations between 2017 and 2022 Pluto and Eris show temporal variations in their phase coefficients \(\beta \) in the o and c filters related to “phase reddening.’ This effect is more pronounced for Eris than for Pluto. The absolute color Hc-Ho of Eris is \(0.34 \pm 0.05\). The absolute colors of Pluto are systematically redder than those of Eris. The absolute color and relative phase coefficients of Pluto in the o- and c-filter show a significant anti-correlation on an annual basis, which is a direct result of “phase reddening”. The relationship between these two variables is not obvious in Eris because of the small annual variations in absolute color. Eris and Pluto show no comet-like outbursts during the observation period studied here.

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Acknowledgements

This work has made use of data from the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) project. The ATLAS project is primarily funded to search for near-earth asteroids through NASA grants NN12AR55G, 80NSSC18K0284, and 80NSSC18K1575; byproducts of the NEO search include images and catalogs from the survey area. This work was partially funded by Kepler/K2 grant J1944/80NSSC19K0112 and HST GO-15889, and STFC grants ST/T000198/1 and ST/S006109/1. The ATLAS science products have been made possible through the contributions of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, the Queen’s University Belfast, the Space Telescope Science Institute, the South African Astronomical Observatory, and The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS), Chile.

The author thanks Orahcio Felicio de Sousa for his help in the initial stages of preparing this manuscript.

The author would like to thank the anonymous Reviewer 2 and the editor Josep Maria Trigo-Rodríguez for their comments and suggestions and for their ethical and professional conduct during this peer review process.

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  1. Centro de Ciência e Tecnologia em Energia e Sustentabilidade, Universidade Federal do Recôncavo da Bahia, Feira de Santana, 44.085-132, Brazil

    A. S. Betzler

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Betzler, A.S. Analysis of the ATLAS photometry of the dwarf planets (134340) Pluto and (136199) Eris. Astrophys Space Sci 369, 10 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-024-04275-w

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