engleski

Inventorying the Solar System with LSST

LSST's extremely wide sky coverage (>30, 000 square degrees), coupled with a faint limiting magnitude (r 24.7 per image), and a rapid observational cadence -- each field is observed twice per night, 4-5 times each month -- result in a survey telescope with powerful potential for detecting small moving objects. Near the ecliptic, LSST is expected to detect approximately 4000 moving objects per 9.6 square degree field of view ; automated software will provide the means to link these individual detections into orbits. The result will be catalogs of hundreds of thousands of NEOs and Jupiter Trojans, millions of asteroids, tens of thousands of TNOs, and thousands of other objects such as comets and irregular satellites of the major planets. These catalogs will be publicly available, both final orbits and the underlying multi-color observations, with highly accurate measurements in astrometry ( 50 mas) and photometry ( 0.01-0.02 mag). With these large datasets, LSST will provide new insights into links between populations of moving objects, such as the relationship between Main Belt asteroids and NEOs. Models of solar system evolution, such as the Nice model, can be tested against an order of magnitude larger statistical sample, providing much stronger constraints than are currently possible. Detection of populations of objects beyond Neptune at a wide range of ecliptic latitudes as well as a well-characterized measurement of cometary populations will permit measurements of the nature of the inner and outer Oort cloud. Using high accuracy multicolor photometry, lightcurves and colors will be determined for a significant fraction of the objects detected. Through sparse lightcurve inversion, spin state and shape models will be derived for tens of thousands of main belt asteroids. Derivation of proper elements for Main Belt asteroids will greatly enlarge existing asteroid families, particularly at smaller sizes, and precise color information will facilitate further divisions.

comets

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