{"id":135893,"date":"2023-06-22T13:25:48","date_gmt":"2023-06-22T17:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893//?p=135893"},"modified":"2024-05-16T12:25:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T16:25:08","slug":"ucf-is-leading-comprehensive-study-of-centaurs-and-jupiter-family-comets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893//ucf-is-leading-comprehensive-study-of-centaurs-and-jupiter-family-comets/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893//","title":{"rendered":"Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Is Leading Comprehensive Study of Centaurs and Jupiter-family Comets"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ researcher is working on a new, NASA-funded project that will gather the most comprehensive collection of data on active centaurs and distantly-active Jupiter-family comets to date./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n

The work will inform research into the origins of the solar system, as these bodies contain materials from the dawn of its formation./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n

Centaurs and Jupiter-family comets are small icy bodies that exist primarily in the outer regions of the solar system. While both are composed of a mixture of rock, dust and volatile substances, Jupiter-family comets are known for their cometary activity, such as comae and tails, while centaurs are often considered dormant. However, about 10% of known centaurs do display cometary-like activity./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u201cCentaurs and Jupiter-family comets have material in their nuclei interiors that we think is pretty pristine in the sense that their upper layers are really insulating, so the solar heating that/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u2019s incident on their surfaces doesn’t penetrate very deep,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u201d says Charles Schambeau /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u201918PhD, an assistant scientist with Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u2019s Florida Space Institute and the project/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u2019s principal investigator. /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u201cAnd so, if we can try to understand their interiors more, we will have a connection to that early, four-and-a-half billion-year-old set of conditions when they formed./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n

The four-year, $500,000 NASA-funded project will use the Gemini Observatory/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u2019s twin 8.1-meter telescopes located in Chile and Hawaii to make observations of approximately 60 distantly active small icy bodies./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n

Schambeau and project co-investigator Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Physics Professor Yan Fernandez have been leading a data collection effort of these objects since 2016, which is resulting in the largest and most comprehensive set of high-quality data on these types of objects to date. Receiving the new NASA award will enable the continuation of their program at least until 2026, Schambeau says./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n

The project team also includes collaborator Marco Micheli, a researcher with the European Space Agency./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n

Investigating Icy Bodies/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n

The researchers will specifically investigate how the super volatiles carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2) are stored in the icy bodies, which remains a fundamental knowledge gap in the understanding of the formation and evolution of the solar system, Schambeau says./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n

If CO and CO2 are found to be frozen as bulk ices in Centaur nuclei interiors, then it means they were formed in a much colder environment than if CO and CO2 are found to be trapped inside of a porous form of ice known as amorphous water ice. For instance, if they are found to be frozen as bulk ice, the objects could have formed much farther from the Sun./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u201cThe current state of super volatiles in these objects really gives a good constraint on the temperature under which these objects formed, and that gives us vital constraints that can be later used in solar system formation models,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u201d Schambeau says./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n

The project so far has been amassing a large amount of imaging data on each individual object./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u201cOne major goal of the project is to monitor each object/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u2019s comet-like activity behaviors over the course of an entire orbit around the Sun, which for centaurs can at times take decades,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u201d he says. /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u201cWe/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u2019re really in this for the long haul./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n

Student Researchers/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n

The large amount of data collected over a long time period has resulted in the project enlisting Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ undergraduate students to help develop software to streamline the data/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u2019s processing./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n

Recent Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ physics graduates Tina Beck /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u201923 and Seamus Walker /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u201923 have been working on the project since the fall of 2021 by helping with the data/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u2019s processing pipeline./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n

Both became interested in the work after they had been students in Schambeau/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/u2019s astronomy class as undergraduates./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/135893/n