The sizes, albedos, and comae of Centaurs

Details The sizes, albedos, and comae of Centaurs The sizes, albedos, and comae of Centaurs

Mar 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008sptz.prop50348t&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #50348

Physics

Scientific paper

The small bodies of the Solar System retain the best information about the era of planet formation and the subsequent evolution of our planetary system. As escaped KBOs that wander close(r) to Earth and to the Sun, we have the opportunity to study KBOs with a sensitivity and resolution that is not generally available in the main Kuiper Belt. Centaurs are both dynamically transitional --- as former Kuiper Belt Objects and potentially future comets --- and physically so, as some display cometary activity that is absent in the Kuiper Belt. We propose here to observe 27 Centaurs with Spitzer to address these fundamental questions about this interesting transitional population. We will determine their physical properties --- size and albedo --- as a probe of their fundamental nature. We will carry out a coma search. This program will more than double the number of Centaurs observed with Spitzer and create a sample of nearly 50 targets in which we can look for correlations among physical properties and derive a true size distribution for Centaurs that can be compared to the best-known KBO and Jupiter family comet size distributions. If any Centaurs in our sample are observed to be binaries in a companion HST program, we will derive their densities, and compare Centaur densities to KBO densities. We will look for common properties among active Centaurs. The results will reveal the physical properties of this interesting transitional population, and help constrain the suggested link between Kuiper Belt Objects and Jupiter family comets.

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