Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors

[wjfox]

Water found on the surface of an asteroid for the 1st time ever

By Samantha Mathewson
published about 13 hours ago

Water molecules have been detected on the surface of an asteroid for the first time, revealing new clues about the distribution of water in our solar system.

Scientists studied four silicate-rich asteroids using data gathered by the now-retired Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a telescope-outfitted plane operated by NASA and the German Aerospace Center.

Observations by SOFIA's Faint Object InfraRed Camera (FORCAST) instrument showed that two of the asteroids — named Iris and Massalia — exhibit a specific wavelength of light that indicated the presence of water molecules at their surface, a new study reports.

"Asteroids are leftovers from the planetary formation process, so their compositions vary depending on where they formed in the solar nebula," study lead author Anicia Arredondo, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a statement. "Of particular interest is the distribution of water on asteroids, because that can shed light on how water was delivered to Earth."

https://www.space.com/water-detected-as ... time-sofia



Image credit: Courtesy of NASA/Carla Thomas/SwRI)

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

News Release. Limitations regarding length of citation therefore do not apply.
Astronomers Confirm a New “Trojan” Asteroid that Shares an Orbit with Mars
by
March 21, 2024

Introduction:

(IAC) Using observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) a study led from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) has confirmed that the asteroid 2023 FW14, discovered last year, is accompanying the red planet in its journey around the Sun, ahead of Mars and in the same orbit. With this new member, the group of Trojans which accompany Mars has increased in number to 17. But it shows differences in its orbit and chemical composition which may indicate that it is a captured asteroid, of a primitive type. The results are published in the prestigious journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

A team from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) has observed and described for the first time the object 2023FW14, a Trojan asteroid which shares its orbit with Mars. After Jupiter, the red planet is the one which has the largest number of known Trojans, 17 with this new incorporation.

The Trojan asteroids are small bodies of the Solar System which share the orbit of a planet, occupying one of the points of stable equilibrium called the Lagrange points, situated 60º in front of (L4) and 60º behind (L5) the planet.

For the object 2023 FW14, the numerical simulations carried out at UCM during 2023 and 2024 have confirmed that it is an L4 Trojan, which means that it travels ahead of Mars, and is the second known Trojan of this type, after asteroid 1999 UJ7.

Although the majority of the Martian asteroids seem to have accompanied the planet since the epoch of its formation, 2023 FW14 arrived at its Trojan trajectory about a million years ago, and it may leave it in some 10 million years, according to the numerical results obtained.

”While the orbital evolution of the 16 previously known Trojans shows long term stability, the orbit of the new one is not stable” explains Raul de la Fuente Marcos, a researcher in the Department of Earth Science and Astrophysics at the UCM, who has led the study.”There are two possibilities for its origin: it could be a fragment of the Trojan 1999 UJ7, or it may have been captured from the population of asteroids close to the Earth which cross the orbit of Mars” he adds.

Additional extract:

Increasing the number of known Martian Trojans allows researchers to deepen their understanding of these objects, whose existence was first predicted from mathematical calcuiations. “Studying real Trojans rather than only those predicted mathematically allows us to test the reliability of our theoretical models”, concludes de la Fuente Marcos.

Read more here: https://www.iac.es/en/outreach/news/as ... orbit-mars

Earth has only two known trojans but it is difficult to study them.

Source: https://www.iflscience.com/mars-has-a- ... rbit-73511