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# Program information file
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PROGRAM_ID           2024B101
PROGRAM_TITLE        Strange Rumblings at and around 95P/Chiron
PROGRAM_INV1         Theodore Kareta
PROGRAM_INV2          
PROGRAM_INV3          
PROGRAM_INV4          
PROGRAM_INV5          
PROGRAM_SCICAT       Centaurs / TNOs / KBOs
PROGRAM_ABSTRACT_BEG
The largest active comet and second-largest Centaur 95P/Chiron has been acting strangely of late. Starting sometime in 2021, it brightened by more than half a magnitude -- more than can be attributed to rotational or phase effects. Considering that this is the second time Chiron has brightened near perihelion and the context by which all JWST observations of the body have been performed, it is thus critical to understand the nature and processes which drove its recent brightening. We propose a series of two non-sequential nights to study the rotationally resolved reflectance spectrum of Chiron to attempt to differentiate between surface effects [e.g. a different portion of the surface is illuminated or the properties of the surface have changed somewhat] and those attributable to dust in orbit around Chiron, and thus constrain what aspects of its recent brightening might be related to new or renewed cometary activity. Given that typical particle orbits [~20 days] are significantly longer than a rotational period [~5.92 hours], variability on different timescales can thus be attributable to different processes more simply here than at other bodies. Chiron, as the largest active [mass-shedding] body in the Solar System, is one end of a broad spectrum of objects showing varied kinds and strengths of cometary activity -- these proposed observations have a chance to not just help contextualize recent observations of the body with JWST, they have a chance to help unravel the 50+ year long mystery of why Chiron gets brighter at aphelion.
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