Rafael Sfair

São Paulo State University | Unesp · Department of Mathematics of Guaratinguetá

The aim of this work is to verify the stability of the proposed orbital solutions for the third moonlet (Delta) taking into account a realistic gravitational potential for the central body of the quadruple system (Alpha). We also aim to estimate the location and size of a stability region inside the orbit of Gamma. First, we created a set of test p...

Planetary rings are observed not only around giant planets¹, but also around small bodies such as the Centaur Chariklo² and the dwarf planet Haumea³. Up to now, all known dense rings were located close enough to their parent bodies, being inside the Roche limit, where tidal forces prevent material with reasonable densities from aggregating into a s...

The first proposed Brazilian mission to deep space, the ASTER mission, has the triple asteroid system (153591) 2001 SN263 as a target. One of the mission’s main goals is to analyse the physical and dynamical structures of the system to understand its origin and evolution. The present work aims to analyse how the asteroid’s irregular shape interfere...

A stellar occultation occurs when a Solar System object passes in front of a star for an observer. This technique allows the sizes and shapes of the occulting body to be determined with kilometer precision. In addition, this technique constrains the occulting body’s positions, albedos, densities, and so on. In the context of the Galilean moons, the...

A stellar occultation occurs when a Solar System object passes in front of a star for an observer. This technique allows the determination of sizes and shapes of the occulting body with kilometer precision. Also, this technique constrains the occulting body's positions, albedos, densities, etc. In the context of the Galilean moons, these events can...

The dynamical evolution of the Prometheus and Pandora pair of satellites is chaotic, with a short 3.3 yr Lyapunov time. It is known that the anti-alignment of the apses line of Prometheus and Pandora, which occurs every 6.2 yr, is a critical configuration that amplifies their chaotic dynamical evolution. However, the mutual interaction between Prom...

The dynamical evolution of the Prometheus and Pandora pair of satellites is chaotic, with a short 3.3 years Lyapunov time. It is known that the anti-alignment of the apses line of Prometheus and Pandora, which occurs every 6.2 years, is a critical configuration that amplifies their chaotic dynamical evolution. However, the mutual interaction betwee...

The 99942 Apophis close encounter with Earth in 2029 may provide information about asteroid’s physical charac-teristics and measurements of Earth’s effects on the asteroid surface. In this work, we analysed the surface and thenearby dynamics of Apophis. The possible effects of its 2029 encounter on the surface and environment vicinity arealso analy...

Didymos and Dimorphos are primary and secondary, respectively, asteroids who compose a binary system that make up the set of Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs). They are targets of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the first test mission dedicated to study of planetary defense, for which the main goal is to measure the changes caused after the...

Context. The Centaur (10199) Chariklo has the first ring system discovered around a small object. It was first observed using stellar occultation in 2013. Stellar occultations allow sizes and shapes to be determined with kilometre accuracy, and provide the characteristics of the occulting object and its vicinity. Aims. Using stellar occultations ob...

The Centaur (10199) Chariklo has the first rings system discovered around a small object. It was first observed using stellar occultation in 2013. Stellar occultations allow the determination of sizes and shapes with kilometre accuracy and obtain characteristics of the occulting object and its vicinity. Using stellar occultations observed between 2...

In this study, we study the dynamics of particles around Bennu. The goal is to understand the stability, evolution, and final outcome of the simulated particles around the asteroid. According to the results, the particle sizes can be divided into two main groups depending on their behavior. Particles smaller than a centimeter are quickly removed fr...

This compressed file contains data from numerical simulations performed by Minor-Mercury, Minor-Equilibria and Minor-Gravity packages, that we use to build figures, tables and animated movies of this work. In addition, we have attached the 3-D polyhedral shape model of asteroid Bennu. Are you going to publish? Please acknowledge the use of my code...

In this work, we study the dynamics of particles around Bennu. The goal is to understand the stability, evolution, and final outcome of the simulated particles around the asteroid. According to the results, the particle sizes can be divided into two main groups depending on their behavior. Particles smaller than a centimeter are quickly removed fro...

Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) and Centaurs are remnants of our planetary system formation, and their physical properties have invaluable information for evolutionary theories. Stellar occultation is a ground-based method for studying these small bodies and has presented exciting results. These observations can provide precise profiles of the invol...

Here, we report the results of a set of numerical simulations of the system formed by Neptune, Galatea, dust ring particles, and hypothetical co-orbital satellites. This dynamical system depicts a recent confinement mechanism formed by four co-orbital satellites being responsible for the azimuthal confinement of the arcs. After the numerical simula...

The (153591) 2001 SN263 asteroid system, target of the first Brazilian interplanetary space mission, is one of the known three triple systems within the population of NEAs. One of the mission objectives is to collect data about the formation of this system. The analysis of these data will help in the investigation of the physical and dynamical stru...

Radar observations show that (16) Psyche is one of the largest and most massive asteroids of the M-class located in the main belt, with a diameter of approximately 230 km. This fact makes Psyche a unique object since observations indicated an iron-nickel composition. It is believed that this body may be what was left of a metal core of an early pla...

The (153591) 2001 SN263 asteroid system, a target of the first Brazilian interplanetary space mission, is one of the known three triple systems within the population of near-Earth asteroids. One of the mission objectives is to collect data about the formation of this system. The analysis of these data will help in the investigation of the physical...

The (153591) 2001 SN 263 asteroid system, target of the first Brazilian interplanetary space mission, is one of the known three triple systems within the population of NEAs. One of the mission objectives is to collect data about the formation of this system. The analysis of these data will help in the investigation of the physical and dynamical str...

Radar observations show that (16) Psyche is one of the largest and most massive asteroids of the M-class located in the main belt, with a diameter of approximately 230 km. This fact makes Psyche a unique object since observations indicated an iron-nickel composition. It is believed that this body may be what was left of a metal core of an early pla...

In this paper, we present the cosmological scenario obtained from $f(R,T)$ gravity by using an exponential dependence on the trace of the energy-momentum tensor. With a numerical approach applied to the equations of motion, we show several precise fits and the respective cosmological consequences. As a matter of completeness, we also analyzed cosmo...

Progress in astrometry and orbital modelling of planetary moons in the last decade enabled better determinations of their orbits. These studies need accurate positions spread over extended periods. We present the results of the 2014-2015 Brazilian campaign for 40 mutual events from 47 observed light curves by the Galilean satellites plus one eclips...

Progress in astrometry and orbital modelling of planetary moons in the last decade enabled better determinations of their orbits. These studies need accurate positions spread over extended periods. We present the results of the 2014–2015 Brazilian campaign for 40 mutual events from 47 observed light curves by the Galilean satellites plus one eclips...

We present results from three world-wide campaigns that resulted in the detections of two single-chord and one multi-chord stellar occultations by the Plutino object (84922) 2003~VS$_2$. From the single-chord occultations in 2013 and 2014 we obtained accurate astrometric positions for the object, while from the multi-chord occultation on November 7...

Context. Bright stellar positions are now known with an uncertainty below 1 mas thanks to Gaia DR2. Between 2019-2020, the Galactic plane will be the background of Jupiter. The dense stellar background will lead to an increase in the number of occultations, while the Gaia DR2 catalogue will reduce the prediction uncertainties for the shadow path. A...

PDS 110 is a young disk-hosting star in the Orion OB1A association. Two dimming events of similar depth and duration were seen in 2008 (WASP) and 2011 (KELT), consistent with an object in a closed periodic orbit. In this paper we present data from a ground-based observing campaign designed to measure the star both photometrically and spectroscopica...

PDS 110 is a young disk-hosting star in the Orion OB1A association. Two dimming events of similar depth and duration were seen in 2008 (WASP) and 2011 (KELT), consistent with an object in a closed periodic orbit. In this paper we present data from a ground-based observing campaign designed to measure the star both photometrically and spectroscopica...

The technique of mutual approximations accurately gives the central instant at the maximum apparent approximation of two moving natural satellites in the sky plane. This can be used in ephemeris fitting to infer the relative positions between satellites with high precision. Only the mutual phenomena-occultations and eclipses-may achieve better resu...

In 2014, the discovery of two well-defined rings around the Centaur (10199) Chariklo was announced. This was the first time that such structures were found around a small body. In 2015, it was proposed that the Centaur (2060) Chiron may also have a ring. In a previous study, we analysed how close encounters with giant planets would affect the rings...

In 2014, the discovery of two well-defined rings around the Centaur (10199) Chariklo were announced. This was the first time that such structures were found around a small body. In 2015, it was proposed that the Centaur (2060) Chiron may also have a ring. In a previous study, we analyzed how close encounters with giant planets would affect the ring...

Among the current population of the 81 known trans-Neptunian binaries (TNBs), only two are in orbits that cross the orbit of Neptune. These are (42355) Typhon-Echidna and (65489) Ceto-Phorcys. In the present work, we focused our analyses on the temporal evolution of the Typhon-Echidna binary system through the outer and inner planetary systems. Usi...

The G ring arc hosts the smallest satellite of Saturn, Aegaeon, observed with a set of images sent by Cassini spacecraft. Along with Aegaeon, the arc particles are trapped in a 7:6 corotation eccentric resonance with the satellite Mimas. Due to this resonance, both Aegaeon and the arc material are confined to within sixty degrees of corotating long...

The Cassini spacecraft found a new and unique ring that shares the trajectory of Janus and Epimetheus, co-orbital satellites of Saturn. Performing image analysis, we found this to be a continuous ring. Its width is between 30% and 50% larger than previously announced. We also verified that the ring behaves like a firefly. It can only be seen from t...

The Cassini spacecraft found a new and unique ring that shares the trajectory of Janus and Epimetheus, co-orbital satellites of Saturn. Performing image analysis, we found this to be a continuous ring. Its width is between 30% and 50% larger than previously announced. We also verified that the ring behaves like a firefly. It can only be seen from t...

The Centaur population is composed by minor bodies wandering between the giant planets and that frequently perform close gravitational encounters with these planets, which leads to a chaotic orbital evolution. Recently, the discovery of two well-defined narrow rings was announced around the Centaur 10199 Chariklo. The rings are assumed to be in the...

In previous works we have studied the location of stable regions in the Pluto-Charon system. Among the findings, we discovered an island of stability, named sailboat island. One of the main goals of the New Horizons mission, launched in 2006, is to have a flyby close to the Pluto-Charon system in order to explore it. In the present work we analyze...

Hitherto, rings have been found exclusively around the four giant planets in the Solar System. Rings are natural laboratories in which to study dynamical processes analogous to those that take place during the formation of planetary systems and galaxies. Their presence also tells us about the origin and evolution of the body they encircle. Here we...

The $\mu$ and $\nu$ rings of Uranus form a secondary ring-moon system with the satellites Puck, Mab,Portia, and Rosalind. These rings are tenuous and dominated by micrometric particles, which can be strongly disturbed by the solar radiation pressure. We performed a numerical analysis of the orbital evolution of a sample of particles under the influ...

The light curves of mutual eclipses and occultations between the natural satellites of a planet allow us to obtain high-precision position and relative motion from differential photometry, enough to detect weak orbital disturbing forces, such as tidal forces. The observations are made during the equinoxes of the planet. We studied 25 light curves...

Abstract (2,250 Maximum Characters): Coorbitais systems are composed of objects that oscillates in tadpole or horseshoe orbits around the Lagrangian equilibrium points. Saturn is the only planet in the Solar System with known coorbital satellite systems. One of them is the Janus-Epimetheus system, in which the coorbitals librate in a large horsesho...

Abstract (2,250 Maximum Characters): Recent images sent by the Cassini spacecraft showed a dense region immerse in the G ring of Saturn, an arc. Further analysis detected the presence of a small satellite, named Aegaeon, with a radius smaller than 1km embedded in this arc. This satellite could be responsible for the maintenance of the ring, and als...

Abstract (2,250 Maximum Characters): Nowadays it is very common to find ejecta from collisions between atmosphereless satellites and hypervelocity meteoroids as a replenishment for faint rings. Even though this effect is broadcast in the literature, in all these cases the source of ejecta is a single satellite. In this work it is shown an attempt t...

Abstract (2,250 Maximum Characters): The Portia group is a set of nine small satellites densely packed within 2 and 3 radii of Uranus, and some of these moons are related to faint rings: the nu ring orbits between Portia and Rosalind, while the mu ring peak is aligned with the orbit of Mab. Sfair amp Giuliatti Winter (2012) showed that the alignmen...

In a previous work, Giuliatti Winter et al. found several stable regions for test particles in orbit around Pluto associated with families of periodic orbits obtained in the circular, restricted three-body problem. They have shown that a possible eccentricity of the Pluto-Charon binary slightly reduces but does not destroy any of these stable regio...

Giuliatti Winter et al. found several stable regions for a sample of test particles located between the orbits of Pluto and Charon. One peculiar stable region in the space of the initial orbital elements is located at a = (0.5d, 0.7d) and e = (0.2, 0.9), where a and e are the initial semimajor axis and eccentricity of the particles, respectively, a...

Context. We previously analysed how the solar radiation force combined with the planetary oblateness changes the orbital evolution of a sample of dust particles located at the secondary ring system of Uranus. Both effects combined with the gravitational perturbations of the close satellites lead to the depletion of these dust particles through coll...

Image photometry reveals that the F ring is approximately twice as bright during the Cassini tour as it was during the Voyager flybys of 1980 and 1981. It is also three times as wide and has a higher integrated optical depth. We have performed photometric measurements of more than 4800 images of Saturn’s F ring taken over a 5-year period with Cassi...

The Aster mission is being planned to use a spacecraft to rendezvous with a near-earth asteroid, 2001 SN263, in 2018. This project uses the expertise of space engineers together with astrophysicists, working on solar system's small bodies, who are proposing the Near-Infrared Spectrometer for the Aster mission.

In order to estimate an upper limit to the normal optical depth of this putative ring we used an analytical model of an impact-generated dust ring proposed by Krivov et al. 2003 and Porter et al. 2010. By comparing our numerical results, which gives the width and lifetime of this ring and the mass production rate of the escaping dust, the maximum n...

Impacts of micrometeoroids on the surfaces of Nix and Hydra can produced dust particles and form a ring around Pluto. However, dissipative forces, such as the solar radiation pressure, can lead the particles into collisions in a very short period of time. In this work we investigate the orbital evolution of escaping ejecta under the effects of the...

Two new companions to the Pluto–Charon binary system have been detected in 2005 by Weaver et al. These small satellites, named Nix and Hydra, are located beyond Charon's orbit. Although they are small when compared to Charon, their gravitational perturbations can decrease the stability of the external region (beyond Charon's orbit). The dynamical s...

2001 SN263 is a triple system asteroid. Although it was discovery in 2001, in 2008 astronomical observation carried out by Arecibo observatory revealed that it is actually a system with three bodies orbiting each other. The main central body is an irregular object with a diameter about 2.8 km, while the other two are small objects with less than 1...

Stable regions, favorable regions to find new satellites, were found around the two large bodies Pluto and Charon, coorbital to Nix and Hydra and also in a small region between the orbits of these two small satellites (Giuliatti Winter et al., 2010 and Pires dos Santos et al., 2010). The discovery of the small satellites Nix and Hydra, located in t...

The population of the nu and mu rings of Uranus is mostly composed by micrometric particles (de Pater et al, 2006), which can be strongly disturbed by the solar radiation pressure (SRP). Sfair & Giuliatti Winter (2009) showed that the combination of the SRP with the planetary oblateness and the gravitational perturbation of the closest satellites r...

In 2006, an outer ring-moon system composed by the satellites Portia, Rosalind, Puck, and Mab, and two tenuous rings µ and nu, was discovered around Uranus by Showalter Lissauer (2006). We present the results of numerical simulations of an ensemble of micrometric particles of both rings disturbed by a combination of the solar radiation pressure for...

Two new companions to the Pluto-Charon binary system have been detected in 2005 by Weaver et al., 2006. These small satellites, named Nix and Hydra, are located beyond Charon's orbit. Although they are small when compared to Charon, their gravitational perturbations can de-crease the stability of the external region of this binary system. In this w...

The μ and ν rings of Uranus form a secondary ring-moon system with the satellites Puck, Mab, Portia, and Rosalind. These rings are tenuous and dominated by micrometric particles, which can be strongly disturbed by dissipative forces, such as the solar radiation pressure. In the region of these rings, the solar radiation force and the planetary obla...

Saturn's F ring has been the subject of study due to its peculiar structure and the proximity to two satellites, named Prometheus (interior) and Pandora (exterior to the ring), which cause perturbations to the ring particles. Early results from Voyager data have proposed that the ring is populated with centimetre- and micrometre-sized particles. Th...

Showalter & Lissauer (2006), through a careful analysis of several Hubble Space Telescope images, discovered two small satellites of Uranus, Mab and Cupid. These images also reveled the existence of two faint rings, R/2003 U1 (R1) and R/2003 U2 (R2). In this work we study the effects of the solar radiation pressure on small particles located in the...

The Saturn s F-ring is a narrow ring orbiting outside the main ring system of Saturn It is located between two close satellites Prometheus the interior one and Pandora The gravitational interactions between the ring particles and the satellites can be responsible for several structures found in this ring Showalter et al 1992 showed that the F-ring...

The Cassini-Huygens arrival into the Saturnian system brought a large amount of data about the satellites and rings. Two diffuse rings were found in the region between the A ring and Prometheus. R/2004 S1 is coorbital to Atlas and R/2004 S2 is close to Prometheus. In this work we analysed the closest approach between Prometheus and both rings. As a...

The New Horizon mission will encounter the Pluto-Charon system in 2015. During the encounter the mission will send important data regarding the composition of Pluto, Charon, Nix and Hydra (both satellites have been recently discovered by Weaver et al. (2006)) and on the dynamics which evolves the four bodies. Therefore, numerical and/or theoretical...