Observations of Solar System Objects with K2
Abstract
The K2 mission utilizes the Kepler space telescope to perform high-precision, uninterrupted photometry of different fields along the ecliptic plane. Each 100 square degree field is observed for 80 days at a time. Data has been obtained for over 300 solar system objects over 18 pointings of the spacecraft. Only a small fraction of the Kepler photometer's pixels are stored and downlinked due to the limited size of the on-board solid state recorder and the data downlink rate. For stationary targets like stars and galaxies, a small postage stamp of pixels centered around the object of interest are stored and downlinked. For moving objects, a track of pixels is stored and downlinked. This track covers a portion of the object's path during the campaign, usually centered around the stationary point. There are two possible data cadences - 1 minute and 30 minutes. A range of solar system objects have been observed - including planets (e.g. Uranus and Neptune), moons (e.g. Titan and Enceladus), and various small bodies. Data has been obtained for over 200 asteroids, more than 60 TNOs and 19 comets. In addition, numerous solar system objects have been observed by K2 serendipitously as the objects move through pixels stored in order to observe other objects. In particular, large 'superstamps' designed to observe clusters and planets have provided observations of high numbers of solar-system bodies. The investigation of fortuitously observed solar system objects has barely begun. Molnar (2017) has examined the region of the focal plane stored to observe Uranus during Campaign 8. Photometry was obtained for over 600 main belt asteroids which crossed this portion of the Kepler focal plane and rotation rates were estimated for 90 asteroids. Other superstamps have not been examined for serendipitous observations. In order to efficiently use the limited resources on the spacecraft, the tracks which trace out the path of moving objects are stored a series of tiles. Pixel level data for each of these tiles is currently available at the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescope. We will describe a recent effort to develop an easier to access data format and python user tools as part of the lightkurve package.
- Publication:
-
AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts #50
- Pub Date:
- October 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018DPS....5031004D