The Edgeworth-Kuiper belt (EKB) is a torus-shaped agglomeration of small icy bodies, just beyond the orbit of Neptune. Due to their distant location, these objects are believed to be relatively pristine and may hold the key to understanding the formation of the Solar System. Until recently, EKB objects (EKBOs) were poorly characterized, primarily due to their large heliocentric distances. However, with the deployment of large dedicated EKBO surveys, such as the Deep Ecliptic Survey (DES), the Canada-France-Ecliptic-Plane-Survey (CFEPS) and the Outer Solar System Origin Survey (OSSOS), we have been able to obtain a detailed picture of the size and orbital distribution of these trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs).
On 1st January, 2019 the NASA New Horizons spacecraft made a revolutionary close encounter with the cold classical Kuiper belt object 2013 MU69 – now named Arrokoth. The Student Dust Counter (SDC), aboard New Horizons, has almost constantly measured the dust spatial density throughout its journey to Arrokoth. While interplanetary dust in the inner Solar System is associated with Jupiter-family comets, dust beyond the orbit of Neptune has been linked to collisions between EKB objects. Dust density measurements, coupled with current EKB orbital models, could aid our understanding of the collisional history of these TNOs.
In this talk I will be presenting how we implement the OSSOS dynamical (orbital) model of the EKB and calculate the collisional probabilities between different EKBO dynamical populations. I will also be discussing how these results compare to crater number density observation on both the Pluto-Charon system and Arrokoth. The crater density measurements on these objects serve as a direct proxy for the collisional evolution of the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt.
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2020-08-10T15:00:002020-08-10T16:00:00Collision probabilities in the Edgeworth-Kuiper beltEvent Information:
The Edgeworth-Kuiper belt (EKB) is a torus-shaped agglomeration of small icy bodies, just beyond the orbit of Neptune. Due to their distant location, these objects are believed to be relatively pristine and may hold the key to understanding the formation of the Solar System. Until recently, EKB objects (EKBOs) were poorly characterized, primarily due to their large heliocentric distances. However, with the deployment of large dedicated EKBO surveys, such as the Deep Ecliptic Survey (DES), the Canada-France-Ecliptic-Plane-Survey (CFEPS) and the Outer Solar System Origin Survey (OSSOS), we have been able to obtain a detailed picture of the size and orbital distribution of these trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs).
On 1st January, 2019 the NASA New Horizons spacecraft made a revolutionary close encounter with the cold classical Kuiper belt object 2013 MU69 – now named Arrokoth. The Student Dust Counter (SDC), aboard New Horizons, has almost constantly measured the dust spatial density throughout its journey to Arrokoth. While interplanetary dust in the inner Solar System is associated with Jupiter-family comets, dust beyond the orbit of Neptune has been linked to collisions between EKB objects. Dust density measurements, coupled with current EKB orbital models, could aid our understanding of the collisional history of these TNOs.
In this talk I will be presenting how we implement the OSSOS dynamical (orbital) model of the EKB and calculate the collisional probabilities between different EKBO dynamical populations. I will also be discussing how these results compare to crater number density observation on both the Pluto-Charon system and Arrokoth. The crater density measurements on these objects serve as a direct proxy for the collisional evolution of the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt.
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