SMARTS Studies of the Composition and Structure of Dwarf Planets

SMARTS has been a great asset for solar system research, especially in tandem with the searches for distant bodies in our own solar system conducted at Palomar and now at La Silla, Chile with the Yale QUEST camera. We have used the SMARTS 1.3m telescope extensively to photometrically characterize the new dwarf planet population (including Eris and Sedna) discovered with the QUEST camera. Since these bodies are the remnant planetesimals from the time of planet formation, their discovery and characterization is fundamental to understanding the formation of our solar system. Here I summarize what the SMARTS observations tell use about the dwarf planet compositions and collisional history.