Our giant paper is out about the Large inclination Distant Object (LiDO) Survey!
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The point of this survey was to find moderately high inclination TNOs, specifically, Plutinos in the 3:2 mean-motion resonance with Neptune that are also in the Kozai resonance. We picked 2 patches on the sky that we knew from models would probably have lots of these, and then tracked them over 3 years, to very high orbital precision, to make sure we could diagnose mean-motion resonances very accurately
We diagnosed resonances by taking clones of the TNOs' best-fit orbits within the orbital uncertainties, and integrating them forward for 30 million years using REBOUND, then carefully looking at the resonant angle of several nearby resonances to see if it's confined - we also looked for confinement (rather than circulation) of the argument of pericentre, since that's the key for Kozai libration
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@sundogplanets Congratulations! One of my career goals is to be sent to your "farm upstate". So I guess we need to start working together on harder problems than satellite constellations!
@hannorein My kitchen table is available for paper-writing anytime! Also my goats are happy to help with writing breaks.
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We diagnosed resonances by taking clones of the TNOs' best-fit orbits within the orbital uncertainties, and integrating them forward for 30 million years using REBOUND, then carefully looking at the resonant angle of several nearby resonances to see if it's confined - we also looked for confinement (rather than circulation) of the argument of pericentre, since that's the key for Kozai libration
Sometimes TNOs show different behaviours in different parts of the orbital uncertainty. But most of the time our orbits were precise enough (and the phase space for different behaviours large enough) that the current dynamical behaviour of the real TNO is very clear.
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Sometimes TNOs show different behaviours in different parts of the orbital uncertainty. But most of the time our orbits were precise enough (and the phase space for different behaviours large enough) that the current dynamical behaviour of the real TNO is very clear.
Here's our new map of the outer Solar System: we detected and tracked 141 TNOs to high precision, 62 of which are in mean-motion resonances with Neptune.
There's a tiny bit of science work testing a model of the hot classical belt orbital distribution, but we mostly want to save our science for separate papers, since this one was already SO long just with the survey and orbital classification descriptions.
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Our giant paper is out about the Large inclination Distant Object (LiDO) Survey! https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.19865
This was a stunning amount of work and took us several years (including a visit to my farm by 2 of the other co-PIs where we alternated between patting goats, keeping our children happy, and sitting at my kitchen table writing text and writing code to make pretty figures). I'm so glad it's refereed and out in the world finally!
@sundogplanets very cool work! And such an excellent feeling when such long projects finally come together!
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@hannorein My kitchen table is available for paper-writing anytime! Also my goats are happy to help with writing breaks.
@sundogplanets @hannorein nice draft...are you going to eat that?
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Here's our new map of the outer Solar System: we detected and tracked 141 TNOs to high precision, 62 of which are in mean-motion resonances with Neptune.
There's a tiny bit of science work testing a model of the hot classical belt orbital distribution, but we mostly want to save our science for separate papers, since this one was already SO long just with the survey and orbital classification descriptions.
The thing I'm most proud of from this paper: the co-authors include 5 students I directly supervised for undergrad research projects and 2 I supervised for grad research projects. Not bad for a professor at a university with no astronomy major!
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The point of this survey was to find moderately high inclination TNOs, specifically, Plutinos in the 3:2 mean-motion resonance with Neptune that are also in the Kozai resonance. We picked 2 patches on the sky that we knew from models would probably have lots of these, and then tracked them over 3 years, to very high orbital precision, to make sure we could diagnose mean-motion resonances very accurately
Very pretty picture!
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The thing I'm most proud of from this paper: the co-authors include 5 students I directly supervised for undergrad research projects and 2 I supervised for grad research projects. Not bad for a professor at a university with no astronomy major!
We've got 2 other related papers out already from the survey results. One was this beast of a pretty-plot exercise looking at stability of the plutino resonant phase space: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/adc10c/pdf
And one was looking at a super weird extremely distant TNO we discovered that's in the 10:1 mean-motion resonance with Neptune! It's resonances all the way out.... https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/addd22/pdf
More soon!
Look at all the cool science we can do that will all get harder with more satellite streaks...
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The thing I'm most proud of from this paper: the co-authors include 5 students I directly supervised for undergrad research projects and 2 I supervised for grad research projects. Not bad for a professor at a university with no astronomy major!
@sundogplanets Congratulations to everyone, and especially to you!
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@sundogplanets very cool work! And such an excellent feeling when such long projects finally come together!
@vicgrinberg ESPECIALLY right before I have to submit a big grant proposal! "In press" sounds SO much better than "in review"
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Our giant paper is out about the Large inclination Distant Object (LiDO) Survey! https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.19865
This was a stunning amount of work and took us several years (including a visit to my farm by 2 of the other co-PIs where we alternated between patting goats, keeping our children happy, and sitting at my kitchen table writing text and writing code to make pretty figures). I'm so glad it's refereed and out in the world finally!
@sundogplanets Congrats!
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Our giant paper is out about the Large inclination Distant Object (LiDO) Survey! https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.19865
This was a stunning amount of work and took us several years (including a visit to my farm by 2 of the other co-PIs where we alternated between patting goats, keeping our children happy, and sitting at my kitchen table writing text and writing code to make pretty figures). I'm so glad it's refereed and out in the world finally!
@sundogplanets that actually sounds like a perfect way to write a paper.
I have kids and cuddly ducks and chickens, just have to invite the coworkers
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Here's our new map of the outer Solar System: we detected and tracked 141 TNOs to high precision, 62 of which are in mean-motion resonances with Neptune.
There's a tiny bit of science work testing a model of the hot classical belt orbital distribution, but we mostly want to save our science for separate papers, since this one was already SO long just with the survey and orbital classification descriptions.
@sundogplanets holy shit! actual scientists using plots that look a lot like the weirdest web app I ever built to look at asteroid data.
(Its entirely static files... don't ask if you don't want technical details. Also ignore the dead name in the footer, it shows how long its been since I updated it.)
https://parsecsreach.org/astro-grid/#Orbital-Eccentricity/Inclination-To-The-Ecliptic/gray
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@vicgrinberg ESPECIALLY right before I have to submit a big grant proposal! "In press" sounds SO much better than "in review"
@sundogplanets oh yes!
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@hannorein My kitchen table is available for paper-writing anytime! Also my goats are happy to help with writing breaks.
@sundogplanets @hannorein when things go tits up down here can American academics escape to your farm
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@sundogplanets congrats!
Maybe worth contacting Dr Becky on YouTube and get this study some additional reporting?
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Our giant paper is out about the Large inclination Distant Object (LiDO) Survey! https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.19865
This was a stunning amount of work and took us several years (including a visit to my farm by 2 of the other co-PIs where we alternated between patting goats, keeping our children happy, and sitting at my kitchen table writing text and writing code to make pretty figures). I'm so glad it's refereed and out in the world finally!
@sundogplanets kudos to persevering with data from pandemic-era observations, what a marathon! 🤯
I know it isn't the main purpose of the research, but I'm always fascinated not just by the numbers but even how big these bodies this far out can be. The Haumea-family ones y'all estimate at 30+ km (~ Arrokoth-size), maybe a few 100+km in the survey then, those with 6-7 abs magnitude? (This mpc conversion table applies to TNOs as well, right? https://minorplanetcenter.net/iau/lists/Sizes.html)
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Our giant paper is out about the Large inclination Distant Object (LiDO) Survey! https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.19865
This was a stunning amount of work and took us several years (including a visit to my farm by 2 of the other co-PIs where we alternated between patting goats, keeping our children happy, and sitting at my kitchen table writing text and writing code to make pretty figures). I'm so glad it's refereed and out in the world finally!
@sundogplanets Congratulations!
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We diagnosed resonances by taking clones of the TNOs' best-fit orbits within the orbital uncertainties, and integrating them forward for 30 million years using REBOUND, then carefully looking at the resonant angle of several nearby resonances to see if it's confined - we also looked for confinement (rather than circulation) of the argument of pericentre, since that's the key for Kozai libration
Looks really cool! Something for me to think about, read about, and think some more! Fun!
One question: what are the two different phi graphs?
