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J.M. Bauer, K.J. Meech, T.C. Owen (UHIfA), T.L. Roush (ARC), S.E. Dahm (UHIfA)
2060 Chiron was the earliest discovered Centaur object. It remains the only Centaur with a visible coma. In June, 2001 we observed Chiron from the IRTF and UH 2.2m telescopes simultaneously at optical (VRI) and NIR wavelengths. At the time, Chiron was at a distance of 10.77 AU from the sun. Our data reveals that the Centaur was in a highly active state, with a visible coma, and Hv values of 5.63 (± 0.05) and colors V-R=0.26 (± 0.01), R-I= 0.32(± 0.03). The imaging data shows the coma was approximately 36000 km (4.5 arcsec) in extent. The activity departs from a recent trend of relative quiesence since perihelion where Hv values were observed as faint as 6.7. NIR spectra were obtained for the wavelengths between 1.0 and 2.5 \mum during the outburst event using the SpeX low resolution prism mode ({{{\Delta \lambda} \over \lambda} ~100} . Modeling of the NIR data is underway. We will discuss the implications of these results and the observed activity for the Centaur's composition and source of cometary behavior.
Funding is in part provided by NASA grant Number NAGW-5015 and NASA's Planetary Geology & Geophysics Program.
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