- Lectures
- Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Location
R1412 of the Astronomy-Mathematics Building, National Taiwan University
- Speaker Name
Shiang-Yu Wang, ASIAA
- State
Definitive
- Url
Transneptunian Automated Occultation Survey (TAOS II) is a blind occultation survey with the primary goal to measure the size distribution of small (~1 km diameter) Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs). Such events are extremely rare (< 0.001 per star per year) and very short in duration (~200 ms). To enable serendipitous discovery many stars must be monitored simultaneously at high cadence. TAOS II will monitor 2,000 to 10,000 stars simultaneously at a cadence of 20 Hz using three 1.3 meter F/4 telescopes operating at San Pedro Mártir Observatory (SPM) in Baja California, Mexico. Over five years of operations, the TAOS II dataset will collect ~3 PB of multi-telescope 20 Hz lightcurve data for hundreds of thousands of objects. This unique dataset will provide ample opportunity for science outside of the primary goal to measure the TNO size distribution. TAOS II will achieve first light in Spring 2025. The current status and the near future plan will be presented in this talk.