Mars plays the shepherd of our moon’s long-lost twins, scientists have discovered

An international team of planetary scientists led by astronomers at AOP has found a planet behind Mars with a similar formation to the Moon. Asteroids may be an ancient piece of debris, composed of the vast influences of the formation of the Moon and other rocky planets in our solar system, such as Mars and Earth. Research, which was published in the journal Icarus, Also has implications for discovering such primitive objects associated with our own planet.

Trojans are a class of asteroids that follow planets in their orbits as flocks of sheep follow a shepherd, trapped inside the gravitational “safe havens” degrees 0 ૦ front and rear of the planet (Figure 1). They are of great interest to scientists because they represent the material left over from the formation of the solar system and early evolution. Many thousands of Trojans exist in the orbit of the giant planet Jupiter. Near the Sun, astronomers have so far discovered only a handful of Trojans from the Earth’s front door, the planet Mars.

Italy, Bulgaria and the U.S. A team led by Armag Observatory and Planetarium (AOP) in Northern Ireland, including scientists from India, is studying the Trojans of Mars to understand what they tell us about the early history of the inner world of our solar system. The so-called terrestrial planets – also to inform the discovery of the Earth’s Trojans. Ironically, it is much easier to find a Mars Trojan than our own planet because this Earth Trojan, if it exists, always sits close to the Sun in the sky where it is difficult to show telescopes. The 2010 TK7, a meaning Trojan, was discovered a decade ago by NASA’s WISE Space Telescope, but computer modeling showed that it is a temporary visitor from the belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter rather than the remnants of Earth’s formation.

To find out the composition of the Mars Trojan, the team used an X-shooter, a spectrograph mounted on the European Southern Observatory 8-meter Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. The X-Shooter sees how the planet’s surface reflects sunlight of different colors – its reflection spectrum. A process called taxonomy, comparing the spectrum with the solar system’s bodies with a well-known composition, the team hopes to determine if the planet is made of the same material as rocky planets like Earth, or if it is part of carbon- and the outer solar system characteristic of Jupiter. Rich substance.

A team on the Trojan spotted (101429) 1998 VF31. The existing color data on the Object object indicated a similar formation of a common class of meteorites called common chondritis. VLT’s light-collecting power allowed more quality data to be collected on these asteroids than ever before. Combining these new parameters with data previously obtained at NASA’s Infrared Telescope facility in Hawaii, the team then attempted to classify 101429. They found that the spectrum did not match well with any particular type of meteorite or asteroid and, as a result, analyzed their area to accommodate other types of Earth spectra.

To their surprise, they discovered (Figure 2) that the best spectral match was not with another small body but with our nearest neighbor, the moon. Dr. Galen Borisov, PDRA of AOP, who was deeply involved in spectral analysis, explains: “We have many spectra for asteroids that are not very different from the Moon but when you look closely there are significant differences, for example in shape and wavelengths of 1 and 2 microns. The depth of broad spectrum absorption. However, the spectrum of this particular asteroid seems almost a dead-ringer for parts of the moon where crater interior and mountain-like bedrock are exposed. “

Where can such an unusual thing come from? One possibility is that 101429 is another asteroid, similar to a normal chondrite meteorite that achieved a moon-like appearance exposed to solar radiation, a process called space weather.

Alternatively, the asteroid will look like the moon because it comes from the moon. A.O.P. The astronomer and lead author of the paper, Dr. Apostolos Cristo explains: “The early solar system was very different from where we see it today. The space between the newly formed planets was full of debris and collisions were common. Large asteroids” We call these planets – the moon and other planets constantly colliding. Were. One shard was able to reach the orbit of Mars from such a collision when the planet was still formed and its Trojan was trapped in the clouds. “

Third, and probably scenario, the probable scenario is that the object came from Mars. Dr. “The shape of the 101429 spectrum tells us that it is rich in pyroxene, a mineral found in the outer layer or crust of a planet-sized body. Like Mars, the Moon and Earth, it was pumped through. The effects of its early history, One of these was responsible for the huge Borealis basin, which was as wide as a planet. Such a large impact could easily send 101429 to the planet’s L5 logarithmic point. “Indeed, a few years ago the origin of Mars was proposed for 101429 Trojan siblings. , A group of Trojans collectively known as the Eureka family (Figure 1). These asteroids also have an unusual composition but, while 101429 are rich in pyroxene, the asteroids of this Eureka family are mostly olivine, found deep in the mantle of mineral planets.

101429 and his brothers also have something to teach them to find the Earth Trojan, if it exists. Previous work by the team has shown that solar radiation causes debris, in the form of boulder- or city-block-sized parts, to slowly emerge from these asteroids out of Mars’ Trojan clouds. If Earth is nothing like Trojan Mars, the same mechanism will act as a source of small-Earth asteroids that will also stand out due to their unusual composition.

Finding these objects is a tax. The Rubin could be a job for the observatory, which is preparing for the most ambitious survey of the solar system to date. Rubin now expects to find ten times as many known asteroids, and with the GAIA satellite already surveying the sky from the L2 Earth-Sun range range grease point, it could offer us the best possible time to find Earth’s debris. Trojan allies.