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L.H. Wasserman, M.W. Buie, R.L. Millis (Lowell Observatory), J.L. Elliot, S.D. Kern, A.A.S. Gulbis, K.B. Clancy (MIT), D.E. Trilling (U. AZ), E.I. Chiang (U.C. Berkeley), K.M. Meech (U. Hawaii)
The search phase of the Deep Ecliptic Survey (DES) was completed in May, 2005 after almost seven years -- four under formal survey status from the national observatories. Nearly 850 KBOs and Centaurs were discovered, of which just under 500 have received provisional designations from the Minor Planet Center. This represents nearly half of the total population with designations or permanent numbers. The survey has revealed the dynamical richness of the Kuiper Belt. Eleven mean motion resonances with Neptune have been shown to be populated including the discovery of the first object in the 1:1 ``Trojan'' resonance and the recently announced discovery of an object in the 3:1 resonance - the most distant resonance yet found. In this paper, we will summarize results to date from the DES and discuss ongoing work to (1) refine orbits for as many DES KBOs as possible and (2) to substantially improve the photometry of objects discovered during the survey.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #3
© 2004. The American Astronomical Soceity.