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      Stellar Occultations by Transneptunian objects: from Predictions to Observations and Prospects for the Future

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          Abstract

          In terms of scientific output, the best way to study solar system bodies is sending spacecraft to make in-situ measurements or to observe at close distance. Probably, the second best means to learn about important physical properties of solar system objects is through stellar occultations. By combining occultation observations from several sites, size and shape can be derived with kilometric accuracy. Also, atmospheric properties can be derived if the body has an atmosphere. Furthermore, the technique can detect rings and even satellites (although rarely) around the main body. Except for the very special cases of Pluto and Charon, stellar occultations by Transneptunian Objects (TNOs) had never been observed until October 2009. This was because the ephemeris of the TNOs have much larger uncertainties than their angular diameters (typically of the order of ~10 milliarcsecond) and also because stellar catalogs were not accurate to the milliarcsecond level. Despite the difficulties, at the time of this writing, 43 occultations by 22 different Trans-Neptunian Objects, and 17 occultations by 5 Centaurs have been detected thanks to the efforts of several teams. Due to the complications of accurately predicting and observing these events, most of the successes have been achieved through wide international collaboration, which is a key issue to succeed in observing stellar occultations by TNOs. Multichord occultations are typically detected at a rate of ~3 per year on average, whereas the majority of the observed occultations are single-chord detections, which means that only one site detects the occultation. In these cases, no tight constraints on size and shape can be derived from those observations alone. Here we review most of the aspects involved in the complex process to successfully observe occultations, and present some of the lessons learned.

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          The Dark Energy Survey

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            29 November 2011 stellar occultation by 2060 Chiron: Symmetric jet-like features

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              Transneptunian objects and Centaurs from light curves

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                10 May 2019
                Article
                1905.04335
                1a4e54f2-33cf-41ce-bd75-5c5fe270c16a

                http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/

                History
                Custom metadata
                Chapter to be published in the book "The Transneptunian Solar System", Dina Prialnik, Maria Antonietta Barucci, Leslie Young Eds. Elsevier
                astro-ph.EP

                Planetary astrophysics
                Planetary astrophysics

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