A SEARCH FOR SATELLITES AROUND CERES

We conducted a satellite search around the dwarf planet 1 Ceres using Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based Palomar data. No candidate objects were found orbiting Ceres in its entire stability region down to ∼500 km from the surface of Ceres. Assuming a satellite would have the same albedo as Ceres, which has a visual geometric albedo of 0.07–0.10, our detection limit is sensitive to satellites larger than 1–2 km in diameter.