Chasing Shadows in the Outer Solar System

Abstract

The characteristics of the populations of objects that inhabit the outer solar system carry the fingerprint of the processes that governed the formation and evolution of the solar system. Occultation surveys push the limit of observation into the very small and distant outer solar system objects, allowing us to set constraints on the structure of the Kuiper belt, Scattered disk and Sedna populations. I collected, reduced, and analyzed vast datasets looking for occultations of stars by outer solar system objects, both working with the Taiwanese American Occultation Survey (TAOS) collaboration and leading the MMT/Megacam occultation effort. Having found no such events in my data, I was able to place upper limits on the Kuiper belt, scattered disk and Sedna population. These limits and their derivation are described here.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA522749

Entities

People

  • Federica Bianco

Organizations

  • University of Pennsylvania

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Artificial Satellites
  • Data Mining
  • Data Sets
  • Detection
  • Diffraction
  • Elliptical Orbits
  • Information Processing
  • Information Science
  • Observatories
  • Perihelions
  • Planetary Sciences
  • Power Spectra
  • Scattering
  • Solar System
  • Space Sciences
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Surveys

Readers

  • Astronomy/Astrophysics
  • Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Modeling, Data Assimilation, and Flux Boundary Layers
  • Space Exploration and Orbital Mechanics.