Planetary Science Research
extrasolar planetary systems | outer solar system exploration | jupiter system | adaptive objects

Pluto Outer Solar System Exploration
posse survey | kbo spectroscopy | kbo surfaces | pluto | titan
POSSE Survey
chad trujillo
We are attempting to survey the entire outer solar system for large bright objects in the Kuiper belt. The 48-inch telescope will soon be outfitted with a CCD capable of covering 10 square degrees in one shot, and we plan to spend ~3 years searching the skies for something big. Large Kuiper belt objects? Small planets? Depends on what is there. But Quaoar is one example.

KBO Spectroscopy
mike brown
When we find the large bright objects (or when someone else finds them) we are attempting to determine their composition by obtaining infrared spectra from the Keck telescope.

KBO Satellites
chad trujillo
Asteroids got em. Pluto's got one. What about Kuiper belt objects? If we could find satellites of Kuiper belt objects we would be able to use Kepler's laws to directly determine the mass of the object, which is one of the key unknowns that we still have no idea about. We are engaged in a large Hubble Space Telescope program to search for and characterize such satellites.

News: KBOs got em, too. 1998 SM165 and 1999 TC36

Pluto and Charon
mike brown
We are trying to characterize the ices of of the large Kuiper belt objects Pluto and Charon. We recently presented evidence that Charon once had icy ammonia volcanoes. We're now trying to confirm this hypothesis and see where else these volcanoes might have blown.

Jupiter Jupiter System
europa | io
Europa's Surface
mike brown

Io/Jovian Magnetosphere Interaction
mike brown


Adaptive Optics

Titan
antonin bouchez
We are engaged in an ongoing project to map the surface and clouds of Saturn's moon Titan using adaptive optics on the Palomar, Keck II telescope, and Air Force AEOS telescopes. The surface of Titan is hidden at visible wavelengths by a thick, hazy atmosphere. Observing at wavelengths longward of 1 micron, however, it is possible to penetrate this haze. Adaptive optics on a 10-m telescope allows us to achieve a resolution of 0.05 arcseconds at 2 microns, or 300 km at Titan's distance. We're studying spectral images to learn about the surface, clouds, and atmospheric structure and composition of Titan.
Titan in H band titan in H
Titan in K' band titan in K'


Galilean Satellites
sarah horst
We are using the AEOS adaptive optics telescope on Maui to image the Galilean satellites of Jupiter. We are experimenting with using the IDAC blind deconvolution code, to determine how well AO PSFs can be determined from observations such as these.

Gaspra Asteroids
jean-luc margot
Adaptive optics is particularly good at resolving pairs of point sources, like asteroids and their satellites. We are using the AO system on the Keck telescope to survey all of the bright asteroids to see if they have satellites. Update: they do!



Gl229b Extrasolar Planetary Systems, etc.
Brown Dwarfs
adam burgasser
Using survey data from the 2 Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) and working with members of the Rare Objects Team, we are searching for T dwarfs, or methane dwarfs, brown dwarfs cool enough that methane forms in their atmospheres and yields a characteristic near infrared spectral signature. We've found many new field T dwarfs, and progress is underway to produce a spectral classification, investigate activity, investigate binarity, and determine a T dwarf mass function.