Bibcode
Melita, M. D.; Licandro, J.; Jones, D. C.; Williams, I. P.
Referencia bibliográfica
Icarus, Volume 195, Issue 2, p. 686-697.
Fecha de publicación:
6
2008
Revista
Número de citas
28
Número de citas referidas
27
Descripción
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.
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