K2 observes near the ecliptic, where the bulk of Solar System targets lie Jack J. Lissauer NASA Ames K2 Sci Con, Santa Barbara 2015 November 4

  Comet Siding Springs  Trans-Neptunian Objects  Trojan & Hilda Asteroids  Main Belt Asteroids  Neptune (& Uranus) K2 Solar System Targets

 Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Springs)

  K2 has already observed 5 TNOs, including Pluto  Period of light curve gives rotation rate  Amplitude of light curve shows asymmetries in shape or albedo Trans-Neptunian Objects

  K2 has already observed 68 Trojan or Hilda asteroids  Period of light curve gives rotation rate  Amplitude of light curve shows asymmetries in shape or albedo Trojan & Hilda Asteroids

  K2 has serendipitously observed ~ 10,000 MBAs that fell into the pixel masks of stars  Period of light curve gives rotation rate  Amplitude of light curve shows asymmetries in shape or albedo Main Belt Asteroids

Amy Simon (NASA GSFC) Jason Rowe (SETI) et al.

 The Rationale  These planets expected to have spherical harmonic oscillations  Predicted by Vorontsov (1976), Bercovici & Schubert (1987)  Change in radius should change the reflected solar flux (Mosser 1995) and ring structures (Marley & Porco 1993)  Detected acoustic modes in Doppler observations of Jupiter (Gaulme 2011)  Saturnian oscillations may have been detected via waves observed in Saturn’s C ring (Hedman & Nicholson 2013)  Generate a long duration, rapid cadence, light curve to look for various predicted frequencies  Directly applicable to studies of brown dwarfs and exoplanets

 Challenges  Neptune and Uranus saturate detector  Use difference imaging photometry to remove background  Find disk integrated signal (no photons lost)  Periodic thruster firings for RWA desats and telescope roll corrections  Can be removed  Planetary oscillations give a very faint signal, ~ 2 ppm

 Neptune

 Neptune Light Curve

 Periodograms

 Keck for Context

 Hubble for Context Sept. 2015

  Atmospheric variability linked to images informs brown dwarf and directly imaged exoplanet analysis  Solar oscillations detected within planet’s light curve  Planet oscillations still being searched for  Triton & Nereid light curves ‘asteroidal’ but can be linked to Voyager images Neptune System Science