Colours of the Outer Solar System Origins Survey: An Update
Abstract
The vast majority of the known dwarf-planet sized bodies are bright enough to be studied through optical and infrared spectroscopy. As a result, we have an understanding of the surface properties for the largest Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) which retain their primordial inventory of volatile ices. For the typically smaller > 22 mag KBO, we must rely instead on what colors reveal by proxy; yet this picture remains incomplete. Most KBO physical property studies examine the hodgepodge set of objects discovered by various surveys with different and varying detection biases that make it difficult if not impossible to reliably estimate the sizes of the different surface color groupings (compositional classes) residing in the modern-day Kuiper belt.The Colours of the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (Col-OSSOS) probes the surface properties within the Kuiper belt primarily through near simultaneous g,r and J colors with the Gemini North Telescope and u-band with Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. The project aims to target ~100 KBOs brighter than 23.6 r‧ mag found by the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS), a survey with a well-measured detection efficiency. Thus, Col-OSSOS provides the first brightness-complete, compositional-dynamical map of the Outer Solar System, probing in a new light the radial color distribution in the primordial planetesimal disk from which KBOs originated. We will provide an update on the current status of the program highlighting results from the first two years of the survey; including size estimates of the two color KBO subgroups (the red and neutral surfaces) within the dynamically excited Kuiper belt and implications for the early planetesimal disk composition based on neutral-colored binaries found in the cold classical Kuiper belt.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #231
- Pub Date:
- January 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AAS...23111503S