Observations of the activating Centaur 2000 EC98

Details Observations of the activating Centaur 2000 EC98 Observations of the activating Centaur 2000 EC98

Jan 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006sptz.prop..265b&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #265

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

On the next-to-last day of 2005, an amazing discovery was made. A modest member of a population of minor planets was suddenly found to be outbursting, and the object, originally classified as an astroidal body with no visible sign of coma or non-rotational photometric variation, had become a comet. 2000 EC98 is a Centaur, a class of objects which have long been suspected as the precursors to many of the comets in our Solar System, but not proven so. This previously quiescent, though fairly well studied, body has afforded the astronomy community the opportunity to observe the changes which the earliest onset of cometary activity may bring to a planetary surface, and to test the theories as to which physical characteristics may herald the potential for future activity and the existence of primordial substances, like volatiles, within the outer Solar System's asteroidal populations. We are requesting director's discretionary time on the Spitzer Space Telescope to observe t his rare event, while the Centaur is still newly active, so that we may characterize the changes taking place on the nucleus, the robustness of the activity, and the nature of the dust in the coma at this early outburst stage. Unlike the surfaces of Jupiter Family comets, which have been processed by long periods of activity, and unlike the few other active Centaurs, which have been discovered after their onset of activity, this would be the first and rare opportunity to study changes on a cometary surface as it goes from a likely long period of dormancy into strong outbur st.

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