Kleopatra / Science
Science · Kleopatra
These are six research papers, all free to read on arXiv, about Kleopatra. We summarize each one in plain English from its abstract.
Our own artist's impression. No figures are taken from the papers.
Every number links to the paper it comes from.
How big Kleopatra is, what shape it has and how it spins.
What they foundKleopatra has two small moons; their orbits give a system mass of about 4.64 × 10¹⁸ kg and a density of about 3.6 g/cm³, implying significant porosity.
Keck adaptive-optics images, Spitzer spectra and past occultations.
Source for: System mass
What they foundKleopatra's shape is close to an equilibrium dumbbell and it spins near the limit at which it would start shedding material; its density is lower than a previous 5 g/cm³ estimate.
VLT/SPHERE images from 2017–2018 plus light curves, occultations and radar.
What they foundKleopatra won't shed surface material at its current 5.385-hour spin, but its neck may be close to structural failure.
Stability calculations using its radar shape and measured mass.
Source for: Spin period
What they foundDumbbell-shaped equilibrium figures fit Kleopatra's light curves and give new density estimates.
Mathematical models tested on Kleopatra, Trojan asteroid Hektor and a Kuiper belt object.
How Kleopatra moves, and the gravity and sunlight forces that shape its path.
What they foundLinking observations from 1980 to 2018 needs tidal effects that slowly widen the orbit of the outer moon, Alexhelios.
Orbit modelling with an occultation from 1980 and VLT/SPHERE astrometry.
Spacecraft that have visited, or are planned to study, Kleopatra.
What they foundA proposed 'Heavy Metal' mission could measure Kleopatra's mass to one part in ten million and map its gravity well enough to tell interior models apart.
Simulations of radio-tracking and imaging for the mission concept.
New papers on Kleopatra, checked weekly, summarized after a person reads it.
No new papers on Kleopatra this week. We check arXiv every week.
We search arXiv for Kleopatra papers and keep the ones that add something new, are clearly written up and are relevant to a general reader. A person reads every abstract.
Summaries are written by us from each paper’s abstract, not copied. Diagrams are our own simplified drawings, not figures from the papers.
“Peer-reviewed” means arXiv lists a journal reference for the paper. Everything else is marked “Preprint”: shared openly, possibly before or without journal review.
Paper metadata courtesy of arXiv. Summaries written by us; read the original papers via the links. Paper metadata from arXiv.org, which does not endorse this site.