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K. Cook, B. Craig (LLNL), J. A. Tyson (Bell Labs, Lucent), C. Stubbs (U. Washington), E. L. Bowell (Lowell Obs.), A. Harris (JPL), R. Binzel (MIT ), LSST Collaboration
The Large-aperture Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) was a highly ranked Major Initiative in Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millenium, the last decadal survey. The LSST's potential for exploring the Solar System was a major reason for this high ranking. The proposed design (see poster by Angel, this meeting) provides an effective aperture of 6.9-m and a 7 square degree field. This instrument will excel at time-domain surveys over wide fields, as well as allow extremely deep surveys. The LSST will be able to cover the whole available sky to 24th magnitude in three days or collect deep images to 28th magnitude over 1000 square degrees every 5 days.
The LSST capabilities make it the best instrument for Solar System surveys. A proposed Near Earth Object (NEO) survey mode will cover about 15,000 square degrees in three weeks with 9 visits per field. This should allow an inventory of NEOs to 300-m in size to be 90{%} complete in a decade if this survey is chosen as a priority. This survey mode will also yield a deep census of Trans Neptunian Objects (TNOs), Main Belt Asteriods (MBAs) and comets. The LSST will provide its own follow up because it resurveys the sky on such a rapid schedule. The LSST will also collect deep multi-color photometry for its discoveries for classification and better understanding of compostion and evolution of these bodies.
We will detail the LSST instrument and describe in detail the various surveys modes and how its moving body census will enable detailed study of the structure and evolution of the Solar System. More complete details of the design and science mission can be found at http://lssto.org.
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This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract No. W-7405-Eng-48.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to lssto.org. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: kcook@llnl.gov