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The Jupiter trojans, commonly called trojan asteroids or simply trojans, are a large group of asteroids that share the planet Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each trojan librates around one of Jupiter's stable Lagrange points: either L4, existing 60° ahead of the planet in its orbit, or L5, 60° behind. Jupiter trojans are distributed in two elongated, curved regions around these Lagrangian points with an average semi-major axis of about 5.2 AU.
An asteroid family is a population of asteroids that share similar proper orbital elements, such as semimajor axis, eccentricity, and orbital inclination. The members of the families are thought to be fragments of past asteroid collisions. An asteroid family is a more specific term than asteroid group whose members, while sharing some broad orbital characteristics, may be otherwise unrelated to each other.
Neptune trojans are bodies that orbit the Sun near one of the stable Lagrangian points of Neptune, similar to the trojans of other planets. They therefore have approximately the same orbital period as Neptune and follow roughly the same orbital path. Thirty-one Neptune trojans are currently known, of which 27 orbit near the Sun–Neptune L4 Lagrangian point 60° ahead of Neptune and four orbit near Neptune's L5 region 60° behind Neptune. The Neptune trojans are termed 'trojans' by analogy with the Jupiter trojans.
3749 Balam is a stony Flora asteroid and rare trinary system orbiting in the inner regions of asteroid belt. It also forms a secured asteroid pair with sub-kilometer sized asteroid (312497) 2009 BR60. Balam was discovered on 24 January 1982, by American astronomer Edward Bowell at Lowell's Anderson Mesa Station near Flagstaff, Arizona, and received the prov. designation 1982 BG1. It was named after Canadian astronomer David Balam. Balam measures approximately 4.1 kilometers (2.5 miles) in diameter. Its two minor-planet moons have an estimated diameter of 1.66 and 1.84 kilometers, respectively.
Mount Lemmon Survey (MLS) is a part of the Catalina Sky Survey with observatory code G96. MLS uses a 1.52 m (60 in) cassegrain reflector telescope operated by the Steward Observatory at Mount Lemmon Observatory, which is located at 2,791 meters (9,157 ft) in the Santa Catalina Mountains northeast of Tucson, Arizona.
In astronomy, a co-orbital configuration is a configuration of two or more astronomical objects orbiting at the same, or very similar, distance from their primary, i.e. they are in a 1:1 mean-motion resonance..
1583 Antilochus is a large Jupiter trojan from the Greek camp, approximately 108 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 19 September 1950, by Belgian astronomer Sylvain Arend at Uccle Observatory in Belgium, and later named after the hero Antilochus from Greek mythology. The dark D-type asteroid belongs to the 20 largest Jupiter trojans and has a rotation period of 15.9 hours. It forms an asteroid pair with 3801 Thrasymedes.
1647 Menelaus is a mid-sized Jupiter trojan from the Greek camp, approximately 42 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 23 June 1957 by American astronomer Seth Nicholson at the Palomar Observatory in California, and later named after the Spartan King Menelaus from Greek mythology. The dark asteroid has a rotation period of 17.7 hours. It is the principal body of the proposed Menelaus cluster, which encompasses several, mostly tentative Jovian asteroid families.
1749 Telamon is a dark Jupiter Trojan from the Greek camp, approximately 70 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth at the Heidelberg Observatory on 23 September 1949, and named after Telamon from Greek mythology. The D-type asteroid is the principal body of the proposed Telamon family and belongs to the 60 largest Jupiter trojans. It has a rotation period of 17.0 hours and possibly a spherical shape.
2148 Epeios is a mid-sized Jupiter trojan from the Greek camp, approximately 38 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 24 October 1976, by Danish astronomer Richard Martin West at ESO's La Silla Observatory in northern Chile. The dark Jovian asteroid is the principal body of the proposed Epeios family and was named after Epeius from Greek mythology.
3063 Makhaon is a large Jupiter trojan from the Greek camp, approximately 114 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 4 August 1983, by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnij, on the Crimean peninsula. The dark D-type asteroid is the principal body of the proposed Makhaon family and belongs to the 20 largest Jupiter trojans having a rotation period of 8.6 hours. It was named after the legendary healer Machaon from Greek mythology.
The Mars trojans are a group of trojan objects that share the orbit of the planet Mars around the Sun. They can be found around the two Lagrangian points 60° ahead of and behind Mars. The origin of the Mars trojans is not well understood. One theory suggests that they were primordial objects left over from the formation of Mars that were captured in its Lagrangian points as the Solar System was forming. However, spectral studies of the Mars trojans indicate this may not be the case. Another explanation involves asteroids chaotically wandering into the Mars Lagrangian points later in the Solar System's formation. This is also questionable considering the short dynamical lifetimes of these objects. The spectra of Eureka and two other Mars trojans indicates an olivine-rich composition. Since olivine-rich objects are rare in the asteroid belt it has been suggested that some of the Mars trojans are captured debris from a large orbit-altering impact on Mars when it encountered a planetary embryo.
4007 Euryalos is a larger Jupiter trojan from the Greek camp, approximately 48 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 19 September 1973, by Dutch astronomers Ingrid and Cornelis van Houten at Leiden, and Tom Gehrels at Palomar Observatory in California. The likely spherical Jovian asteroid is the principal body of the proposed Euryalos family and has a rotation period of 6.4 hours. It was named after the warrior Euryalus from Greek mythology.
4138 Kalchas is a large Jupiter trojan from the Greek camp, approximately 53 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 19 September 1973, by Dutch astronomers Ingrid and Cornelis van Houten at Leiden, on photographic plates taken by Tom Gehrels at the Palomar Observatory in California. The assumed C-type asteroid is the principal body of the proposed Kalchas family and has a rotation period of 29.2 hours. It was named after the seer Calchas from Greek mythology.
1368 Numidia, provisional designation 1935 HD, is a stony background asteroid from the central regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 19 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 30 April 1935, by South African astronomer Cyril Jackson at the Union Observatory in Johannesburg. The asteroid was named after the ancient North African kingdom of Numidia.
13062 Podarkes is a mid-sized Jupiter trojan from the Greek camp, approximately 29 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 19 April 1991, by American astronomer couple Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker at the Palomar Observatory, California. The dark Jovian asteroid is the principal body of the proposed Podarkes family. It was named after Podarkes from Greek mythology.
3801 Thrasymedes is a mid-sized Jupiter trojan from the Greek camp, approximately 34 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 6 November 1985, by astronomers with the Spacewatch survey at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, United States. The dark Jovian asteroid has a rotation period of 20.3 hours and forms an asteroid pair with 1583 Antilochus. It was named after Thrasymedes from Greek mythology.
P/2016 J1 (PanSTARRS) is a pair of active main-belt asteroids that split apart from each other in early 2010. The brightest and largest component of the pair, P/2016 J1-A, was discovered first by the Pan-STARRS 1 survey at Haleakalā Observatory on 5 May 2016. Follow-up observations by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory discovered the second component, P/2016 J1-B, on 6 May 2016. Both asteroids are smaller than 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) in diameter, with P/2016 J1-A being roughly 0.6 km (0.37 mi) in diameter and P/2016 J1-B being roughly 0.3 km (0.19 mi) in diameter. The two components recurrently exhibit cometary activity as they approach the Sun near perihelion, suggesting that their activity is driven by sublimation of volatile compounds such as water.
(458271) 2010 UM26 and 2010 RN221 are a pair of sub-kilometer-sized asteroids that have extremely similar orbits in the main asteroid belt. These two asteroids are thought to have dissociated from a binary system sometime in the 2000s, which would make them one of the youngest asteroid pairs known. The largest member of this pair, (458271) 2010 UM26 (or simply 2010 UM26), is about 760 m (2,490 ft) in diameter and was discovered on 10 November 2006 by the Spacewatch survey at Kitt Peak Observatory. The smaller member, 2010 RN221, is about 350 m (1,150 ft) in diameter and was discovered on 11 September 2010 by the Mount Lemmon Survey at Mount Lemmon Observatory. It was not until February 2022 that astronomers began to recognize the similar orbits of these asteroids.
References
- ↑ Johnston, Wm. Robert (29 April 2018). "Asteroid pairs and clusters". Johnston's Archive. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
- ↑ Milani, Andrea (October 1993). "The Trojan asteroid belt: Proper elements, stability, chaos and families". Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy. 57 (1–2): 59–94. Bibcode:1993CeMDA..57...59M. doi:10.1007/BF00692462. ISSN 0923-2958. S2CID 189850747.
- 1 2 Moreno, F.; Pozuelos, F. J.; Novaković, B.; Licandro, J.; Cabrera-Lavers, A.; Bolin, B.; et al. (March 2017). "The Splitting of Double-component Active Asteroid P/2016 J1 (PANSTARRS)" (PDF). The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 837 (1): 6. arXiv: 1702.03665 . Bibcode:2017ApJ...837L...3M. doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa6036 . L3.
- ↑ Vokrouhlický, D.; Fatka, P.; Micheli, M.; Pravec, P.; Christensen, E. J. (August 2022). "Extremely young asteroid pair (458271) 2010 UM26 and 2010 RN221" (PDF). Astronomy & Astrophysics. 664: 6. arXiv: 2208.06207 . Bibcode:2022A&A...664L..17V. doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202244589 . L17.
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