Comets that inhabit the region of the Main Asteroid Belt are a recent discovery; as of the end of 2009, only 4 were known. This project is an effort to greatly increase the number of known Main Belt Comets (MBCs), to characterize their rotation states, colors, and reflectance properties, and to physically model the response of their surfaces to heating and cooling. Postdoctoral researchers, along with the PI, will complete the development of software that will identify MBCs in data from the Pan STARRS 1 survey telescope (PS1). In the first 3 years of PS1 operations, hundreds of MBCs are expected to be discovered. The team will follow up the PS1 detections with observations on various other optical telescopes to obtain rotation rates, pole orientations, colors, and phase functions; and will develop thermal models that incorporate orbital dynamics, rotation, solar irradiation, porosity, volatile diffusion, and phase changes. Some of the follow-up observations will be performed by middle- and high-school students in the Hawaii-Stars (HISTARS) outreach program. The scientific products of this work will contribute to the understanding of the evolution of ices in the asteroid belt and the transport of water in the Solar System, and in particular the origin of water on Earth.
