Pluto system: External stable regions

Abstract

The main goal of this work is to locate stable regions in the Pluto system where objects can be detected. The orbital evolution of large and small particles, under the gravitational effects of the five satellites, is carried out through a sample of numerical simulations. Our results show that for a set composed of large particles, those in retrograde orbits present larger stable regions than the particles in prograde orbits. As the inclination increases the stable regions decrease up to I = 90° when these regions start increasing again. For those particles with initial I = 150°the perturbation of Pluto satellites is small. The orbital evolution of small particles (1, 5, and 10, mum in size) is analysed by adding the effects of the solar radiation force. 90 per cent of the initial set of 10text-mum-sized particles survived up to 1800 yr when the initial value of I is 150°and 180°. For other values of inclination, the majority of the particles survived only 20 yr.