Early Solar System Volatile Distribution

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This award funds work to compare the distribution and abundance of volatiles in the early solar system with those in protoplanetary disks around other stars, and test models of planetary formation. The PI and her team will focus on measuring the abundance ratio of carbon monoxide (CO) to carbon dioxide (CO2) gases in a diverse set of small icy bodies, including comets and Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), orbiting the Sun at large distances. CO and CO2 are both key volatiles that are among the primary drivers of comet activity and are important tracers for studying the chemical composition of the early solar system. The researchers will accomplish this with analysis of new observations and existing databases of comets and KBOs. The PI will train and mentor two postdoctoral researchers and work with computer science and electrical engineering students graduate students in a summer school program using astronomical data.Specific objectives include conducting optical follow up for newly discovered and previously known active comets in order to estimate CO/CO2 gas fluxes, obtaining high resolution near-IR spectra and sub-mm observations on bright comets seen by the WISE telescope in order to detect CO, employing Finson-Probstein dust dynamical models, utilize data from the Pan STARRS1 survey telescope, and the team's existing photometry database to create simple sublimation models to understand the activity over a range of distances. They will also develop ways to visualize portions of the data set in a 3D mini-CAVE environment to enable new types of science exploration.