{"id":105225,"date":"2019-12-11T11:27:16","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T16:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=105225"},"modified":"2020-02-12T11:04:07","modified_gmt":"2020-02-12T16:04:07","slug":"ucf-postdoctoral-researcher-detects-hunts-of-satellite-orbiting-dwarf-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/ucf-postdoctoral-researcher-detects-hunts-of-satellite-orbiting-dwarf-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"UCF Postdoctoral Researcher Detects Satellite Orbiting a Small Body in Solar System"},"content":{"rendered":"

A University of Central Florida postdoctoral scholar has detected hints of a satellite orbiting an object beyond Neptune.<\/p>\n

Estela Fernandez-Valenzuela, a postdoctoral research associate at UCF\u2019s Florida Space Institute<\/a>, was the lead author on the paper about the detection, which recently published in The Astrophysical Journal.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the first time that the existence of a satellite has been suggested using analysis of rotational light-curves techniques,\u201d Fernandez Valenzuela said. \u201cIt\u2019s quite exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond the eight planets in the solar system, scientists study a multitude of other types of celestial bodies. They are called different things based on the parameters that define the orbits they travel around the sun. The objects, not to be confused with asteroids and comets, litter the solar system. About 2,500 trans-Neptunian objects have been discovered and it was one of these objects \u2013 Varuna \u2013 that Fern\u00e1ndez-Valenzuela was studying when she detected a potential satellite.<\/p>\n

She collaborated with a team of scientists in Spain, where she worked before joining UCF in 2019. The team collected 19 years of data about Varuna from the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Granada, Calar Alto Observatory in Almer\u00eda, and Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in the Canary Islands, all in Spain. The team analyzed the data, looking at how the rotational light curves (the brightness variation of the object due to the rotation on its main-inertial axis) of this TNO differed from what was expected from a single object. They found that beside the periodicity due to the rotation of the body, there was a second periodicity indicating there was likely a satellite orbiting Varuna every 11.9 hours. Until now, satellite discoveries in the trans-Neptunian region have been only accomplished using direct imaging, according to the study.<\/p>\n