• DOI:10.1086/383558
Corpus ID: 119486610

Extreme Kuiper Belt Object 2001 QG298 and the Fraction of Contact Binaries

@article{Sheppard2004ExtremeKB,
  title={Extreme Kuiper Belt Object 2001 QG298 and the Fraction of Contact Binaries},
  author={S. Sheppard and D. Jewitt},
  journal={The Astronomical Journal},
  year={2004},
  volume={127},
  pages={3023-3033}
}

S. Sheppard, D. Jewitt

Published 2004

Physics

The Astronomical Journal

Extensive time-resolved observations of Kuiper belt object 2001 QG298 show a light curve with a peak-to-peak variation of 1.14 ± 0.04 mag and single-peaked period of 6.8872 ± 0.0002 hr. The mean absolute magnitude is 6.85 mag, which corresponds to a mean effective radius of 122 (77) km if an albedo of 0.04 (0.10) is assumed. This is the first known Kuiper belt object and only the third minor planet with a radius greater than 25 km to display a light curve with a range in excess of 1 mag. We… CONTINUE READING

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