Centaurus: A Spacecraft Discovery Mission Proposal to Explore Centaurs and More, Messengers from the Era of Planet Formation

This poster describes a proposal submitted to the NASA Discovery Mission Proposal 2019 call. This mission concept is called Centaurus and proposes the first spacecraft mission to flyby several bodies in a class of solar system objects called Centaurs. Centaurs are objects from the scattered disk of the Kuiper belt, which have recently been gravitationally perturbed and now orbit in the region of the giant planets. Thus they are a closer and more accessible way to study objects from the distant outer solar system. The Centaurus mission is solar powered, and can launch in any year between 2026 and 2029. This poster was presented at the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting in September 2019.