“ESTUDO DE PEQUENOS CORPOS DO SISTEMA SOLAR A PARTIR DAS OBSERVAÇÕES DO DARK ENERGY SURVEY E DE OCULTAÇÃO ESTELAR”

Abstract

Small bodies are considered collisional and dynamical remnants from the formation of the Solar System, carrying essential information about the initial conditions of the protoplanetary disk. Thus, the study of their different populations provides clues about their formation regions, allowing for a better understanding of the evolutionary processes that may have occurred. In this context, this thesis presents results from the study of different small-body populations using observational data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and the stellar occultation technique. Although not originally designed for Solar System astronomy, DES enabled the observation of over 399,000 objects, ranging from near-Earth asteroids to those located beyond Neptune’s orbit, using five optical filters. From their colors, we can obtain taxonomic information for asteroids, Centaurs, and trans-Neptunian objects to infer their surface physical properties and compare them with results from the literature. For the latter two groups, we seek possible correlations between their colors and orbital parameters. Using the stellar occultation technique, we estimated the size and 2D shape of the Jupiter Trojan (2207) Antenor, which was not observed by DES. Additionally, based on a positive detection in 2021, an intriguing feature of this small body was observed, which could be interpreted as either a large topographic anomaly or a possible binary object. We also present astrometric results for the studied Centaurs and TNOs, as well as for (2207) Antenor.