Program: GN-2015B-LP-1

Title:COL-OSSOS: COLours for the Outer Solar System Object Survey (North)
PI:Wesley Fraser
Co-I(s): Audrey Thirouin, Alex Parker, Megan Schwamb, Scott Tremaine, Shiang-Yu Wang, Audrey Delsanti, Rosemary Pike, Michael Marsset, Matthew Lehner, Nuno Peixinho, Michele Bannister, JJ Kavelaars, Pierre Vernazza, Susan Benecchi, Aurelie Guilbert-Lepourte

Abstract

The surfaces of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) have for a long time been poorly understood. Only recently has concrete knowledge of the colour distribution, and reasonable theories for the mechanism which produced that distribution, become available. For the first time, we are in the position to better understand the compositions of TNOs with a well designed colour survey. We are also in the position to use the unique surfaces colours of TNOs in concert with the current dynamical structure to inform our understanding of the TNO formation history and the structure of the primordial disk from which TNOs originated. By utilizing TNO colours, we will glean information that would be unattainable to dynamical efforts alone. The proposed COL-OSSOS survey is designed around this idea. We will observe COLours of all targets from the Outer Solar System Object Survey (OSSOS) with r’<23.5 in g’, r’, and J bands. The focus of the survey is completeness and consistency, with the same SNR=25 being reached in all bands, for all targets brighter than our depth limit. This survey will, for the first time, provide a combined compositional-dynamical test to probe of the Outer Solar System’s cosmogony, the legacy of which is a large TNO dynamical and colour database with fully understood observational biases. We request a total of 378 hours over 8 semesters divided roughly equally between the Gemini-North and South telescopes to observe the 140 OSSOS targets brighter than r’=23.5.

Publications using this program's data