Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Oct 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.4919a&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #49.19; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.1006
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Whipple is a Discovery-class mission that will explore the outer Solar System by searching for the occultations of bright (R<14) stars by small bodies. Whipple will test current theoretical models of the origin of our Solar System by studying directly the populations of small objects that lie beyond the orbit of Neptune, including the Kuiper Belt and scattered disk, the region surrounding Sedna, and the Oort Cloud. Whipple will measure size distributions as a function of (three dimensional) position for these populations. These data will help elucidate the process of formation of macroscopic bodies in the primitive solar system, the history of giant planet migration, and the interactions of planet scattering with the local stellar environment that led to the population of the Oort Cloud, and possibly during the first few million years, of the Sedna region.
Whipple will employ a photometer comprising a Schmidt-Cassegrain optical design with a 77 cm aperture, imaging onto a focal plane subtending 37 square degrees. The focal plane will comprise nine CMOS devices that can be read out at high cadence. The spacecraft will be launched into an Earth-leading solar orbit, and will be able to stare at fields distributed over a wide range of ecliptic latitudes and longitudes.
Whipple will image star fields and produce high signal-to-noise photometric light curves for stars at a variety of cadences: 10,000 stars at 40 Hz, 20,000 stars at 20 Hz, or 40,000 stars at 10 Hz. These light curves will be examined on the spacecraft for possible events of interest, which will then be transmitted to ground for further analysis.
Alcock Charles
Whipple Science Team
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