Whipple (spacecraft)

This is a logarithmic graph showing approximately the predicted range of the Oort cloud. The combination of small size and distance have left these objects beyond the capabilities of existing optical telescopes.[1]

Whipple mission was a proposal for a space observatory in the NASA Discovery Program 2014 announcement of opportunity.[1] It would orbit in a halo orbit around the Earth–Sun L2 and have a photometer that would try to detect Oort cloud and Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) by recording their transits of distant stars.[1] It would be designed to detect objects out to 10,000 AU.[1] Some of the mission goals included directly detecting the Oort cloud for the first time and determining the outer limit of the Kuiper belt.[1] Whipple would be designed to detect objects as small as a kilometer (half a mile) across at a distance of 3,200 billion kilometers; 22,000 astronomical units (2×10^12 mi).[2] It would need a relatively wide field of view and fast recording cadence to capture transits that may last only seconds.[3]

In 2011, Whipple was one of three proposals to win a technology development award in a Discovery program selection.[2] The design proposed was a catadioptric cassegrain telescope of 77-centimeter aperture.[4]

The smallest KBO yet detected was discovered in 2009 by poring over data from the Hubble Space Telescope's fine guidance sensors.[5] They detected a transit of an object against a distant star, which, based on the duration and amount of dimming, was calculated to be a KBO about 1,000 meters (3,200 ft) in diameter.[5] It has been suggested that the Kepler observatory may be able to detect objects in the Oort cloud by their occultation of background stars.[6]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 The Whipple Mission Exploring the Oort cloud and the Kuiper Belt - C Alcock et al.
  2. 1 2 NASA Selects 'Whipple' Mission for Technology Development
  3. ↑ A Fast, Wide Field of View, Catadioptric Telescope for Whipple
  4. ↑
  5. 1 2
  6. ↑ DETECTABILITY OF OORT CLOUD OBJECTS USING KEPLER - 2009
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