Solar-System Exploration in the Era of Digital Sky Surveys
Date Submitted
2017-04-14 10:41:07
Michele Bannister
Queen's University Belfast
The outer Solar System has a wealth of recent discoveries revealing a detailed filigree of mean-motion resonant orbits, emplaced by the migration of Neptune. Some trans-Neptunian objects orbit even further afield, so far from planetary and Galactic tide influences that they appear not to have been emplaced in the presently known Solar System. These extreme TNOs require a formation method - and offer tantalizing hints that our Solar System may be quite different than our current conception. I will discuss new discoveries from the Outer Solar System Origins Survey, a wide-field survey from 2013-2017 on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, and their implications for the existence of a distant massive planet.