Abstract
Whitepaper #296 submitted to the Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032. Topics: surface/geological evolution; primitive bodies; solar system formation, dynamics processes, and chronology
Highlights
Ice-rich planetesimals are understood to be the remnant building blocks of the giant planets and the most pristine record of composition and conditions within the proto-solar disk
We advocate for a program of robotic exploration of Active Primordial Bodies (APBs) emphasizing a quartet of objects (29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann, 95P/Chiron, 174P/Echeclus, and P/2019 LD2) with characterized activity and outburst patterns, two of which are in active transition into the JFC population
The modern population of icy bodies (Fig. 1) consists of objects in dynamically stable reservoirs in the Oort Cloud (OC) and the Kuiper Belt (KB). From these reservoirs a small number of objects have been perturbed inward toward the Sun, becoming long period OC and short period Jupiter Family comets (LPC, JFC) and the Centaurs orbiting between Jupiter and Neptune
Summary
Ice-rich planetesimals are understood to be the remnant building blocks of the giant planets and the most pristine record of composition and conditions within the proto-solar disk. Executive Summary: Active Primordial Bodies (APBs) are ice rich planetesimals orbiting or having perihelia in the giant planet region that experience outbursts or produce coma in the absence of water sublimation.
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