Upper limits on the size of satellites of Asteroid (4) Vesta from 2007 Hubble Space Telescope observations

Lucy A. McFadden; Fabienne A. Bastien; Max Mutchler; Carolyn A. Crow; Heather Weir; Jian Yang Li; Douglas P. Hamilton

doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2012.05.002

Upper limits on the size of satellites of Asteroid (4) Vesta from 2007 Hubble Space Telescope observations

Lucy A. McFadden, Fabienne A. Bastien, Max Mutchler, Carolyn A. Crow, Heather Weir, Jian Yang Li, Douglas P. Hamilton

Astronomy & Astrophysics

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4 Scopus citations

Abstract

We imaged the region around Asteroid (4) Vesta in nine long exposures using the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on the Hubble Space Telescope on May 14 and 16, 2007 to conduct a deep search for satellites in support of NASA's Dawn mission that orbited (4) Vesta in 2011-2012. Several previous search efforts have been undertaken, but no satellites were detected. Our search covered distances from 14 to 260 Vesta radii and searched to a limiting magnitude of 22.5 ± 0.4 in HST's wide-band red filter (F702W). Our upper limit for possible satellites corresponds to a satellite just 22 ± 4. m in radius, assuming the same optical properties as Vesta. Our upper limit is ~10 times smaller than the best limit of previous searches. In situ satellite searches by NASA's Dawn spacecraft will probe regions closer to Vesta than our effort reported here.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	305-310
Number of pages	6
Journal	Icarus
Volume	220
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2012.05.002
State	Published - Aug 2012

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Astronomy and Astrophysics
Space and Planetary Science

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10.1016/j.icarus.2012.05.002

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@article{2f09c82703874118af97e9f4fb1a1a06,

title = "Upper limits on the size of satellites of Asteroid (4) Vesta from 2007 Hubble Space Telescope observations",

abstract = "We imaged the region around Asteroid (4) Vesta in nine long exposures using the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on the Hubble Space Telescope on May 14 and 16, 2007 to conduct a deep search for satellites in support of NASA's Dawn mission that orbited (4) Vesta in 2011-2012. Several previous search efforts have been undertaken, but no satellites were detected. Our search covered distances from 14 to 260 Vesta radii and searched to a limiting magnitude of 22.5 ± 0.4 in HST's wide-band red filter (F702W). Our upper limit for possible satellites corresponds to a satellite just 22 ± 4. m in radius, assuming the same optical properties as Vesta. Our upper limit is ~10 times smaller than the best limit of previous searches. In situ satellite searches by NASA's Dawn spacecraft will probe regions closer to Vesta than our effort reported here.",

author = "McFadden, {Lucy A.} and Bastien, {Fabienne A.} and Max Mutchler and Crow, {Carolyn A.} and Heather Weir and Li, {Jian Yang} and Hamilton, {Douglas P.}",

note = "Funding Information: Support for this work was provided by NASA through GO 10799 from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA Contract NAS5-26555. Funding Information: We thank our program coordinator, William Januszewski and staff at Space Telescope Science Institute for making these observations possible. L.A.M. acknowledges partial support for this work by the Dawn Project under contract from UCLA to University of Maryland 2090SJB692. Reviews by Susan Benecchi and Bill Merline were very helpful. ",

year = "2012",

month = aug,

doi = "10.1016/j.icarus.2012.05.002",

language = "English (US)",

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T1 - Upper limits on the size of satellites of Asteroid (4) Vesta from 2007 Hubble Space Telescope observations

AU - McFadden, Lucy A.

AU - Bastien, Fabienne A.

AU - Mutchler, Max

AU - Crow, Carolyn A.

AU - Weir, Heather

AU - Li, Jian Yang

AU - Hamilton, Douglas P.

N1 - Funding Information: Support for this work was provided by NASA through GO 10799 from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA Contract NAS5-26555. Funding Information: We thank our program coordinator, William Januszewski and staff at Space Telescope Science Institute for making these observations possible. L.A.M. acknowledges partial support for this work by the Dawn Project under contract from UCLA to University of Maryland 2090SJB692. Reviews by Susan Benecchi and Bill Merline were very helpful.

PY - 2012/8

Y1 - 2012/8

N2 - We imaged the region around Asteroid (4) Vesta in nine long exposures using the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on the Hubble Space Telescope on May 14 and 16, 2007 to conduct a deep search for satellites in support of NASA's Dawn mission that orbited (4) Vesta in 2011-2012. Several previous search efforts have been undertaken, but no satellites were detected. Our search covered distances from 14 to 260 Vesta radii and searched to a limiting magnitude of 22.5 ± 0.4 in HST's wide-band red filter (F702W). Our upper limit for possible satellites corresponds to a satellite just 22 ± 4. m in radius, assuming the same optical properties as Vesta. Our upper limit is ~10 times smaller than the best limit of previous searches. In situ satellite searches by NASA's Dawn spacecraft will probe regions closer to Vesta than our effort reported here.

AB - We imaged the region around Asteroid (4) Vesta in nine long exposures using the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on the Hubble Space Telescope on May 14 and 16, 2007 to conduct a deep search for satellites in support of NASA's Dawn mission that orbited (4) Vesta in 2011-2012. Several previous search efforts have been undertaken, but no satellites were detected. Our search covered distances from 14 to 260 Vesta radii and searched to a limiting magnitude of 22.5 ± 0.4 in HST's wide-band red filter (F702W). Our upper limit for possible satellites corresponds to a satellite just 22 ± 4. m in radius, assuming the same optical properties as Vesta. Our upper limit is ~10 times smaller than the best limit of previous searches. In situ satellite searches by NASA's Dawn spacecraft will probe regions closer to Vesta than our effort reported here.

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Upper limits on the size of satellites of Asteroid (4) Vesta from 2007 Hubble Space Telescope observations

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