Spitzer Space Telescope Albedo Survey of Small Jovian Trojans

Details Spitzer Space Telescope Albedo Survey of Small Jovian Trojans Spitzer Space Telescope Albedo Survey of Small Jovian Trojans

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.5001f&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #50.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.576

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We will present preliminary results from our Spitzer Space Telescope (SST) survey of small Jovian Trojan asteroids. For the first time, we have been able to make thermophysical measurements of objects at the faint end of the known Trojan magnitude distribution. Our scientific goal is to determine the mean albedo of these small Trojans. Our sample contains 35 objects with approximate absolute magnitudes (H) between 13 and 14 (diameter 10 to 15 km for 0.05 albedo). For this survey we obtained 24-micron (mid-IR) photometry with the MIPS instrument aboard SST, and visible-wavelength CCD photometry using the University of Hawaii 88-inch Telescope. This lets us constrain each Trojan's effective radius and geometric albedo. While the two datasets were not simultaneous, this is not detrimental to the achievement of our goal since we only need for the effect of the rotational context to average out. In an earlier survey, we found that the mean V-band geometric albedo for large Trojans (sample median diameter of 110 km) is 0.041±0.002 (Fernandez et al. 2003, AJ 126, 1563). If the small Trojans' mean albedo is significantly higher, this would be evidence for a significant volatile component in the Trojan population having survived since formation, and would have implications for the contribution of Trojan asteroids to the Jupiter-family comet population. This research was made possible through a SIRTF Fellowship to YRF and through a GO data analysis grant from SSC to YRF and DCJ.

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