''Centaurus'' is a mission concept to flyby the centaurs

2060 Chiron 2060 Chiron is a small Solar System body in the outer Solar System, orbiting the Sun between Saturn and Uranus. Discovered in 1977 by Charles Kowal, it was the first-identified member of a new class of objects now known as centaurs—bodies orb ...

and Schwassmann–Wachmann 1. It was submitted in response to the NASA Discovery program call for proposals in 2019 but ultimately was not among the four missions selected for further development by NASA in February 2020. If it had been selected, ''Centaurus'' would have been the first mission to attempt a flyby of a centaur.

Overview

If selected, ''Centaurus'' would have been capable of launching in any year between 2026 and 2029. The primary targets of the ''Centaurus'' mission were the centaurs

and

29P/Schwassmann–Wachmann Comet 29P/Schwassmann–Wachmann, also known as Schwassmann–Wachmann 1, was discovered on November 15, 1927, by Arnold Schwassmann and Arno Arthur Wachmann at the Hamburg Observatory in Bergedorf, Germany. It was discovered photographically, w ...

(often shortened to "SW1"). Centaurs are "escapees" from the

Kuiper belt The Kuiper belt () is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 astronomical units (AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times ...

with giant planet-crossing orbits. Both objects are active centaurs with

perihelia An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any ellip ...

within the orbit of

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...

. The ''Centaurus'' payload included imagers and spectrometers to study the surfaces, comae, and any potential rings and shepherd moons around these objects. Use of

solar panels A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a phot ...

would have eliminated the need for radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) or other nuclear sources. Both mission targets show evidence for rings and/or cometary activity. Chiron is the second largest known centaur, by diameter, after 10199 Chariklo. Activity was identified in the past and it may have rings. SW1 is the most active centaur known, averaging over 7 periods of activity each year. This equates to an outburst of cometary activity approximately every 50 days. Thus, there was a high likelihood of ''Centaurus'' flying by SW1 during a period of activity. File:Chiron_in_Celestia.jpg, Depiction of Chiron with rings. File:Centaurus targets relative sizes.png, Comparison of Chiron and SW1 to

486958 Arrokoth Arrokoth (minor-planet designation 486958 Arrokoth; provisional designation ), formerly nicknamed Ultima Thule, is a trans-Neptunian object located in the Kuiper belt. Arrokoth became the farthest and most primitive object in the Solar System ...

and comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Pluto is shown at the bottom of the image.

Mission leadership

''Centaurus'' is a joint proposal of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...

. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboartory (APL) and NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center are also involved. The principal investigator (PI) of the ''Centaurus'' mission is Alan Stern of SwRI in

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...

. The Deputy PI is Kelsi Singer of SwRI.

References

External links

Poster associated with the Singer et al. (2019) EPSC/DPS abstract
{{Use dmy dates, date=October 2019 Discovery program proposals Proposed NASA space probes Missions to minor planets

Overview

Mission leadership

See also

References

External links