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 examine 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 purple planet in its journey across 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. However it reveals variations in its orbit and chemical composition which can point out that it’s a captured asteroid, of a primitive kind. The outcomes are printed within the prestigious journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
A staff from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) has noticed and described for the primary time the thing 2023FW14, a Trojan asteroid that shares its orbit with Mars. After Jupiter, the purple planet is the one which has the biggest variety of identified Trojans, 17 with this new incorporation.
The Trojan asteroids are small our bodies of the Photo voltaic System that share the orbit of a planet, occupying one of many factors of steady equilibrium known as the Lagrange factors, located 60º in entrance of (L4) and 60º behind (L5) the planet.
Nature and Orbit of 2023FW14
For the thing 2023 FW14, the numerical simulations carried out at UCM throughout 2023 and 2024 have confirmed that it’s an L4 Trojan, which signifies that it travels forward of Mars, and is the second identified Trojan of this sort, after asteroid 1999 UJ7.
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
Though the vast majority of the Martian asteroids appear to have accompanied the planet for the reason that epoch of its formation, 2023 FW14 arrived at its Trojan trajectory about one million years in the past, and it could depart it in some 10 million years, in line with the numerical outcomes obtained.
Origin, Composition, and Significance
”Whereas the orbital evolution of the 16 beforehand identified Trojans reveals long-term stability, the orbit of the brand new one will not be steady” explains Raul de la Fuente Marcos, a researcher within the Division of Earth Science and Astrophysics on the UCM, who has led the examine.”There are two potentialities for its origin: it might be a fraction of the Trojan 1999 UJ7, or it could have been captured from the inhabitants of asteroids near the Earth that cross the orbit of Mars” he provides.
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 search out the chemical composition of 2023 FW14, displaying 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 kind, in distinction to the L5 Trojans, all of them rocky and wealthy in silicates”, feedback Julia de León, an IAC researcher, and co-author of the article.
Growing the variety of identified Martian Trojans permits researchers to deepen their understanding of those objects, whose existence was first predicted from mathematical calcuiations. “Finding out actual Trojans fairly than solely these predicted mathematically permits us to check the reliability of our theoretical fashions”, concludes de la Fuente Marcos.
Reference: “Dynamics of 2023 FW14, the second L4 Mars trojan, and a bodily characterization utilizing the ten.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias” by R. de la Fuente Marcos, J. de León, C. de la Fuente Marcos, M. R. Alarcon, J. Licandro, M. Serra-Ricart, S. Geier and A. Cabrera-Lavers, 21 March 2024, Astronomy & Astrophysics.
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202449688
