University of Victoria|University of Victoria

Purpose

Following the JWST ERS and Cycle 1 GO Announcement of Opportunity published on June 14, 2021, the CSA is providing funding via a Grant Agreement to the university to conduct their research using the JWST data. This project will utilize the JWST to perform a multi-epoch, ultra-deep survey for small Kuiper Belt Objects. Near simultaneous observations with the Hubble Space Telescope will provide parallax measurements of the targets, resulting in the faintest ever survey for these objects. Support from the CSA will enable the development of a machine learning network to perform the search for moving bodies in the datasets from both telescopes. The resultant dataset of discoveries will enable a measurement of the Kuiper Belt size distribution over a size range ideal for identifying which planetesimal accretion processes resulted in Kuiper Belt Objects.