Abstract

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is expected to start science operations and begin the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) in the coming weeks. Housing the 8.4-m Simonyi Survey Telescope and the world’s largest digital camera (3.2-gigapixels and a 9.6 square degree field-of-view), Rubin Observatory will spend the next ten years covering the entire visible sky from Chile every ~3 nights.

The small bodies within the Solar System originated in the construction zones that formed our planets. As the fossils left over from the era of planet formation, asteroids, comets, and Kuiper belt objects, inform our knowledge about the growth of planetesimals and planetary embryos as well as the dynamical evolution of our Solar System. Rubin Observatory will completely transform our view of the Solar System with the LSST . The orbits and broad-band photometry of LSST Solar System discoveries will provide an unprecedented view of both the Solar System’s history and the processes active today. For example, LSST will discover more asteroids that have ever been discovered by humans to date and monitor these objects for years with multi-band photometry for cometary activity and changes in brightness.

In this talk, I will present the predictions for LSST Solar System small body discoveries, Sorcha (the Solar System survey simulator developed especially to handle the challenges of the LSST data rate), and the opportunities for cutting edge science in the often-unexplored middle Solar System.