Search for Dust Emission from (24) Themis Using the Gemini-North Telescope
Henry H. Hsieh, Yoonyoung Kim, Alan Fitzsimmons, Mark V. Sykes

TL;DR
This study used the Gemini-North Telescope to search for dust trails around asteroid (24) Themis, finding no detectable dust emission, and discussed implications for dust ejection physics and future observational strategies.
Contribution
First deep imaging search for dust emission from (24) Themis using Gemini-North, demonstrating observational limits and potential for future detections of sublimation or collision debris.
Findings
No dust trail detected within 2 arcminutes of Themis.
Observations capable of detecting faint dust emission as close as 20 arcseconds.
Large particles unlikely to be ejected by sublimation from Themis.
Abstract
We report the results of a search for a dust trail aligned with the orbit plane of the large main-belt asteroid (24) Themis, which has been reported to have water ice frost on its surface. Observations were obtained with the GMOS instrument on the Gemini-North Observatory in imaging mode, where we used a chip gap to block much of the light from the asteroid, allowing us to take long exposures while avoiding saturation by the object. No dust trail is detected within 2' of Themis to a 3-sigma limiting surface brightness magnitude of 29.7 mag/arcsec^2, as measured along the expected direction of the dust trail. Detailed consideration of dust ejection physics indicates that particles large enough to form a detectable dust trail were unlikely to be ejected as a result of sublimation from an object as large as Themis. We nonetheless demonstrate that our observations would have been capable of…
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