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Astronomy & Astrophysics
An artist’s impression of an asteroid close to Mars. Credit score: Gabriel Pérez Díaz (SMM, IAC)
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An artist’s impression of an asteroid close to Mars. Credit score: Gabriel Pérez Díaz (SMM, IAC)
Utilizing observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) a research led from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) has confirmed that the asteroid 2023 FW14, found final yr, is accompanying the pink planet in its journey around the solar, forward of Mars and in the identical orbit.
With this new member, the group of Trojans that accompany Mars has elevated in quantity to 17. Nevertheless it exhibits variations in its orbit and chemical composition which can point out that it’s a captured asteroid, of a primitive sort. The outcomes are revealed in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
A workforce from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) has noticed and described for the primary time the item 2023 FW14, a Trojan asteroid that shares its orbit with Mars. After Jupiter, the pink planet has the most important variety of recognized Trojans, totaling 17 with this new identification.
The Trojan asteroids are small our bodies within the photo voltaic system that share the orbit of a planet, occupying one of many factors of secure equilibrium known as the Lagrange factors, located 60º in entrance of (L4) and 60º behind (L5) the planet.
Though nearly all of the Martian asteroids appear to have accompanied the planet because the epoch of its formation, 2023 FW14 arrived at its Trojan trajectory round one million years in the past, and it might go away it in some 10 million years, based on the numerical outcomes obtained by the research.
“Whereas the orbital evolution of the 16 beforehand recognized Trojans exhibits long-term stability, the orbit of the brand new one will not be secure,” explains Raul de la Fuente Marcos, a researcher within the Division of Earth Science and Astrophysics on the UCM, who has led the research. “There are two potentialities for its origin: it could possibly be a fraction of the Trojan 1999 UJ7, or it might have been captured from the inhabitants of asteroids near the Earth that cross the orbit of Mars.”
Illustration of the Lagrange factors, and specifically L4 and L5, the place the Trojan asteroids are positioned within the orbit of Mars. Credit score: Marspedia
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Illustration of the Lagrange factors, and specifically L4 and L5, the place the Trojan asteroids are positioned within the orbit of Mars. Credit score: Marspedia
The spectrum obtained with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTCI) at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the Island of La Palma has allowed the researchers to find out the chemical composition of 2023 FW14, exhibiting new variations in comparison with the remainder of the Martian Trojans.
“Though the spectrum of 2023 FW14 obtained with the GTC is considerably totally different from that of the opposite L4 Trojan 1999 UJ7, each of them belong to the identical composition group, they’re asteroids of a primitive sort, in distinction to the L5 Trojans, all of them rocky and wealthy in silicates,” says Julia de León, an IAC researcher, and co-author of the article.
Growing the variety of recognized Martian Trojans permits researchers to deepen their understanding of those objects, whose existence was first predicted from mathematical calculations. “Learning actual Trojans somewhat than solely these predicted mathematically permits us to check the reliability of our theoretical fashions,” concludes de la Fuente Marcos.
Extra data:
R. de la Fuente Marcos et al, Dynamics of 2023 FW14, the second L4 Mars trojan, and a bodily characterization utilizing the ten.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias, Astronomy & Astrophysics (2024). DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202449688
Journal data:
Astronomy & Astrophysics
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