Synchronous Rotation in the (120347) Salacia-Actaea System
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| author | Collyer, Cameron Fernandez-Valenzuela, Estela Ortiz, Jose Luis Holler, Bryan J. Proudfoot, Benjamin Morales, Nicolas Morales, Rafael Benecchi, Susan Rommel, Flavia L. Grundy, Will Ragozzine, Darin |
| author_facet | Collyer, Cameron Fernandez-Valenzuela, Estela Ortiz, Jose Luis Holler, Bryan J. Proudfoot, Benjamin Morales, Nicolas Morales, Rafael Benecchi, Susan Rommel, Flavia L. Grundy, Will Ragozzine, Darin |
| contents | We report on roughly 16 years of photometric monitoring of the transneptunian binary system (120347) Salacia-Actaea which provides significant evidence that Salacia and Actaea are tidally locked to the mutual orbital period in a fully synchronous configuration. The orbit of Actaea is updated, followed by a Lomb-Scargle periodogram analysis of the ground-based photometry which reveals a synodic period similar to the orbital period and a peak-to-peak lightcurve amplitude of δm = 0.0900 {\pm} 0.0036 mag (1σ uncertainty). Incorporating archival HST photometry that resolves each component, we argue that the periodicity in the unresolved data is driven by a longitudinally varying surface morphology on Salacia, and derive a sidereal rotation period that is within 1σ of the mutual orbital period. A rudimentary tidal evolution model is invoked that suggests synchronization occurred within 1.1 Gyr after Actaea was captured/formed. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_02734 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Synchronous Rotation in the (120347) Salacia-Actaea System Collyer, Cameron Fernandez-Valenzuela, Estela Ortiz, Jose Luis Holler, Bryan J. Proudfoot, Benjamin Morales, Nicolas Morales, Rafael Benecchi, Susan Rommel, Flavia L. Grundy, Will Ragozzine, Darin Earth and Planetary Astrophysics We report on roughly 16 years of photometric monitoring of the transneptunian binary system (120347) Salacia-Actaea which provides significant evidence that Salacia and Actaea are tidally locked to the mutual orbital period in a fully synchronous configuration. The orbit of Actaea is updated, followed by a Lomb-Scargle periodogram analysis of the ground-based photometry which reveals a synodic period similar to the orbital period and a peak-to-peak lightcurve amplitude of δm = 0.0900 {\pm} 0.0036 mag (1σ uncertainty). Incorporating archival HST photometry that resolves each component, we argue that the periodicity in the unresolved data is driven by a longitudinally varying surface morphology on Salacia, and derive a sidereal rotation period that is within 1σ of the mutual orbital period. A rudimentary tidal evolution model is invoked that suggests synchronization occurred within 1.1 Gyr after Actaea was captured/formed. |
| title | Synchronous Rotation in the (120347) Salacia-Actaea System |
| topic | Earth and Planetary Astrophysics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.02734 |