In its 16 years of scientific measurements, the Spitzer Space Telescope performed ground-breaking and key infrared measurements of Solar System objects near and far. Targets ranged from the smallest planetesimals to the giant planets; Spitzer helped us to reshape our understanding of these objects while also laying the groundwork for future infrared space-based observations like those to be undertaken by the James Webb Space Telescope in the 2020s. In this Review Article, we describe how Spitzer advanced our knowledge of Solar System formation and evolution through observations of small outer Solar System planetesimals—that is, comets, centaurs and Kuiper belt objects (KBOs). Relics from the early formation era of our Solar System, these objects hold important information about the processes that created them.We group Spitzer’s key contributions into three broad classes: characterization of new Solar System objects (comets D/ISON 2012 S1, C/2016 R2 and 1I/‘Oumuamua); large population surveys of known objects (comets, centaurs and KBOs); and compositional studies through spectral measurements of body surfaces and emitted materials.

在其16年的科学测量中，斯必泽太空望远镜对太阳系物体进行了开创性的和关键的红外测量。目标范围从最小的小行星到巨型行星。Spitzer帮助我们重塑了对这些物体的理解，同时也为未来的红外空基观测（例如詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜在2020年代进行的观测）奠定了基础。在这篇综述文章中，我们将介绍斯皮策如何通过观察太阳系外小行星（即彗星，人马和柯伊伯带天体（KBOs））来提高对太阳系形成和演化的认识。这些物件来自太阳系早期形成的遗物，其中包含有关创建它们的过程的重要信息。我们将Spitzer的主要贡献分为三大类：新太阳系物体的表征（彗星D / ISON 2012 S1，C / 2016 R2和1I /'Oumuamua）；对已知物体（彗星，人马和KBO）进行大量人口调查；通过对身体表面和发射物质的光谱测量进行成分研究。