Collaborative Research: RECON, Probing the Outer Solar System with Occultations

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This award funds work to expand a telescope network that was developed with a pilot project, and carry out observing campaigns to measure size and shapes of ten Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) in the outer solar system, and search for moons around them. TNOs are relatively small (diameters range from larger than Pluto to smaller than 100km) frozen bodies that orbit the Sun beyond Neptune's average distance, and formed at the same time as the rest of our solar system. The investigators plan to determine the TNO sizes by observing them as they pass in front of, and temporarily block, distant starlight. They will do this by using 40 telescopes spread out throughout the western United States with the help of 40 different communities of citizen scientists, whom they will teach and train in research methods with workshops and other education efforts. The data will be used to test models of solar system formation.The occultation diameters will also be used to provide cross-calibration of thermal radiometry-based diameters, extend the occultation sample down to 100 km objects, and improve knowledge of albedo distributions. The team will also constrain the binary fraction to a small smaller physical and angular separation than is currently possible with other surveys, and search for low-separation multiple component (moons) systems.