Summary

Illustration of colour distribution of the irregular satellites of giant planets. Plotted by a program written by Eurocommuter. For reference, three classical KBOs and the centaur Pholus are plotted (grey labels; size not to scale).

The data reported in the quoted sources have the error estimate sometimes close to 10% (one sigma). The two reports differ occasionally on the data for the same object. Given the limited amount and the precision of the data, this diagram does not illustrate all conclusions drawn in papers.

Graph

• Irregular satellites
  • Jupiter (red labels)
  • Saturn (yellow labels)
  • Uranus (green labels)
  • For references only: Pholus and three classical KBO (Q=Quaoar), (1),(2) with grey labels [size not to scale]

• The position of an object represents the two colour indices
  • horizontal axis V-B, blue colour index i.e. the difference in the magnitude of the object observed through a visual (green-yellow) and a blue filter
  • vertical axis R-V, red colour index, the difference in the magnitude between red and visual filters
• colour (slightly enhanced) represents the hue of the object;
• the size of a sphere illustrates the object’s size relative to others.
  • for a few large objects, the diameter drawn represents the current estimates (for known albedos)
  • for all the others, the diameter represents the absolute magnitude (H)of the object.

See also

Colours of Centaurs and TNOs.

Data Sources

• Colour indices for most objects, with the exception listed below

Grav, Tommy; Holman, Matthew J.; Gladman, Brett J.; Aksnes, Kaare Photometric survey of the irregular satellites,Icarus, 166,(2003), pp. 33-45. Preprint

• For Himalia, Elara, Leda, Caliban and Sycorax

Rettig, Terrence W.; Walsh, Kevin; Consolmagno, Guy Implied Evolutionary Differences of the Jovian Irregular Satellites from a BVR Color Survey, Icarus, 154, pp. 313-320 (2001).

• For the four objects used for comparison:

MBOSS base: Hainaut & Delsanti (2002) Color of Minor Bodies in the Outer Solar System Astronomy & Astrophysics, 389, 641 [1] as of Mar. 13th, 2006

• Estimated sizes (illustration only) from Sheppard/Jewitt irregular moons' pages [2]

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