Bibcode
Melita, M. D.; Licandro, J.; Jones, D. C.; Williams, I. P.
Bibliographical reference
Icarus, Volume 195, Issue 2, p. 686-697.
Advertised on:
6
2008
Journal
Citations
28
Refereed citations
27
Description
All the Trojan asteroids orbit about the Sun at roughly the same
heliocentric distance as Jupiter. Differences in the observed visible
reflection spectra range from neutral to red, with no ultra-red objects
found so far. Given that the Trojan asteroids are collisionally evolved,
a certain degree of variability is expected. Additionally, cosmic
radiation and sublimation are important factors in modifying icy
surfaces even at those large heliocentric distances. We search for
correlations between physical and dynamical properties, we explore
relationships between the following four quantities; the normalised
visible reflectivity indexes (S), the absolute magnitudes,
the observed albedos and the orbital stability of the Trojans. We
present here visible spectroscopic spectra of 25 Trojans. This new data
increase by a factor of about 5 the size of the sample of visible
spectra of Jupiter Trojans on unstable orbits. The observations were
carried out at the ESO-NTT telescope (3.5 m) at La Silla, Chile, the
ING-WHT (4.2 m) and NOT (2.5 m) at Roque de los Muchachos observatory,
La Palma, Spain. We have found a correlation between the size
distribution and the orbital stability. The absolute-magnitude
distribution of the Trojans in stable orbits is found to be bimodal,
while the one of the unstable orbits is unimodal, with a slope similar
to that of the small stable Trojans. This supports the hypothesis that
the unstable objects are mainly byproducts of physical collisions. The
values of S of both the stable and the unstable Trojans are
uniformly distributed over a wide range, from 0%/1000 Å to about
15%/1000 Å. The values for the stable Trojans tend to be slightly
redder than the unstable ones, but no significant statistical difference
is found.
Related projects
Minor Bodies of the Solar System
This project studies the physical and compositional properties of the so-called minor bodies of the Solar System, that includes asteroids, icy objects, and comets. Of special interest are the trans-neptunian objects (TNOs), including those considered the most distant objects detected so far (Extreme-TNOs or ETNOs); the comets and the comet-asteroid
Julia de
León Cruz