The View of the Centaur Region Through Wide-Field Surveys

Guest Speaker

Thursday, 21st November 2024 (19:45 - 22:00)

Venue: Meeting Room

 Dr Schwamb will present the recent analysis of serendipitous detections of TNOs and Centaurs in the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) surveys with a focus on what these results reveal about Centaur surfaces and cometary activity.
She will also highlight how the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory and the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will provide our best view of the mysterious Centaurs. The small icy bodies in the Trans-Neptunian region originated in the construction zones that formed our planets. As the fossils are left over from the era of planet formation, Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOS) inform our knowledge about the growth of planetary embryos and the dynamical evolution of our solar system. Centaurs are a transitory population of icy planetesimals on relatively short-lived chaotic orbits between Neptune and Jupiter that cross one or more of the giant planets. They have recently entered the middle Solar System, diffusing inward from the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune.

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Speaker: Meg Schwamb

Dr. Megan E. Schwamb is a Senior Lecturer at the Astrophysics Research Centre, Queen's University Belfast. Her research explores the formation and evolution of planets and their building blocks. Using ground-based surveys, Dr. Schwamb studies the small body populations of our Solar System, with a particular focus on the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune. She also leverages citizen science initiatives to analyze large datasets, advancing our understanding of the Solar System.