A Survey for Trojan Asteroids of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune

Details A Survey for Trojan Asteroids of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune A Survey for Trojan Asteroids of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.4403s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #44.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.564

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Through a survey covering tens of square degrees of the Saturn, Uranus and Neptune Lagrangian regions using the 6.5 meter Magellan telescope we discovered three Trojan asteroids. 2004 UP10, 2005 TO74 and 2005 TN53 were all found near the Neptune L4 point, quadrupling the known population of Neptune Trojans. All three of these Neptune Trojans appear to be dynamically stable over the age of the solar system. 2005 TN53 is the first known high inclination Neptune Trojan (i 25 degrees). We have determined that the high inclination Neptune Trojans may outnumber the low inclination Trojans by a factor of 4. The large number of high inclination Neptune Trojans suggests that formation by in-situ accretion was not likely nor capture from collisions within the Lagrangian regions of Neptune. The Neptune Trojan population may be about twenty times larger than the Jupiter Trojan population if both groups have similar low albedos. In addition we find all four known Neptune Trojans have statistically the same slightly red color which is similar to the colors of the Jupiter Trojans. The Neptune Trojans colors are distinctly different than the low inclination, distant classical Kuiper Belt object colors. No Saturn or Uranus Trojans were found in our survey. The Neptune Trojan analysis was recently published in the journal Science.

Known Neptune Trojans

Nep Troj	a (AU)	i (deg)	e	r (km)	V-R	B-I
2004 UP10	30.14	1.3	0.03	70	0.46	1.62
2005 TO74	30.08	1.4	0.03	50	0.42	1.63
2005 TO74	30.05	5.3	0.06	50	0.49	1.76
2005 TN53	30.05	25.1	0.07	40	0.47	1.75

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