The Discovery of Halley-sized Kuiper Belt Objects Using the Hubble Space Telescope
@article{Cochran1995TheDO,
title={The Discovery of Halley-sized Kuiper Belt Objects Using the Hubble Space Telescope},
author={A. Cochran and H. Levison and S. Stern and M. Duncan},
journal={The Astrophysical Journal},
year={1995},
volume={455},
pages={342-346}
}We report the statistical detection (at the >99% confidence level) of a population of 28th magnitude objects exhibiting proper motions of ~1 arcsecond per hour at quadrature in deep HST/WFPC2 images. The drift directions imply a preponderance of objects on prograde orbits concentrated near the ecliptic plane. We interpret this as the detection of objects which reside in the Kuiper belt near or beyond the orbit of Neptune, comparable in size to comet 1P/Halley (radii ~10 km for an albedo of 4… Expand