Spitzer's Solar System Science Legacy: Studies of the Relics of Solar System Formation & Evolution. Part 1 - Comets, Centaurs, & Kuiper Belt Objects

TL;DR

Spitzer's 16-year infrared observations significantly advanced understanding of small outer Solar System objects, revealing their properties and composition, and providing insights into Solar System formation and evolution, paving the way for future missions.

Contribution

This paper presents new insights from Spitzer's infrared measurements of comets, Centaurs, and KBOs, highlighting their role as relics of Solar System formation.

Findings

Characterized new Solar System objects like comets and KBOs.

Conducted large population surveys of small Solar System bodies.

Performed compositional spectral studies of surface materials.

Abstract

In its 16 years of scientific measurements, the Spitzer Space Telescope performed a number of ground breaking and key infrared measurements of Solar System objects near and far. Targets ranged from the smallest planetesimals to the giant planets, and have helped us reform our understanding of these objects while also laying the groundwork for future infrared space-based observations like those to be undertaken by the James Webb Space Telescope in the 2020s. In this first Paper, we describe how the Spitzer Space Telescope advanced our knowledge of Solar System formation and evolution via observations of small outer Solar System planetesimals, i.e., Comets, Centaurs, and Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs). Relics from the early formation era of our Solar System, these objects hold important information about the processes that created them. The key Spitzer observations can be grouped into 3 broad classes: characterization of new Solar System objects (comets D/ISON 2012 S1, C/2016 R2, 1I/`Oumuamua); large population surveys of known object sizes (comets, Centaurs, and KBOs); and compositional studies via spectral measurements of body surfaces and emitted materials (comets, Centaurs, and KBOs).