Program: GN-2021A-Q-407

Comets and their parent source regions (Trans-Neptunian objects, Centaurs, Oort cloud objects) contain mostly pristine materials from the earliest stages of our Solar System’s formation. A better understanding of these objects provides insights into the early physicochemical conditions in the solar nebula, and the accretional and dynamical processes that determined the present Solar System layout. Results from spacecraft visited comet nuclei have confirmed the long-standing view that the majority of cometary-like activity has sub-surface nuclear origins. Thus, the observational characterization of gas and dust comae indirectly probes into the compositional nature of the inaccessible and more thermally pristine nucleus sub-surface layers. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will allow for the first time a thorough observational inventory for the hypervolatile gas comae of small bodies active in outer Solar System. These future JWST observations will provide critical diagnostics for constraining models of hypervolatile outgassing behavior, in turn providing details of the early comet-forming environments. In order to prepare for future JWST observations, we propose acquiring new Gemini-GMOS r’ imaging of a strategically selected group of Centaurs with known periods of activity and distantly active comets. Goals of our program are to: (1) monitor their dust comae activity behaviors and (2) determine high-precision astrometry for individual objects, enabling improved ephemerides with decreased positional uncertainty for efficient JWST spectroscopy.