A Peculiar Family of Jupiter Trojans: the Eurybates

Abstract

The Eurybates family is a compact core inside the Menelaus clan, located in the L4 swarm of Jupiter Trojans. Fornasier et al. (2007) found that this family exhibits a peculiar abundance of spectrally flat objects, similar to Chiron-like Centaurs and C-type main belt asteroids. On the basis of the visible spectra available in literature, Eurybates family's members seemed to be good candidates for having on their surfaces water/water ice or aqueous altered materials. To improve our knowledge of the surface composition of this peculiar family, we carried out an observational campaign at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG), obtaining near-infrared spectra of 7 members. Our data show a surprisingly absence of any spectral feature referable to the presence of water, ices or aqueous altered materials on the surface of the observed objects. Models of the surface composition are attempted, evidencing that amorphous carbon seems to dominate the surface composition of the observed bodies and some amount of silicates (olivine) could be present.

23 pages, 2 figures, paper accepted for publication in Icarus

References in corpus (3)

• Visible spectroscopic and photometric survey of Jupiter Trojans: final results on dynamical families
• Taxonomy of asteroid families among the Jupiter Trojans: Comparison between spectroscopic data and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey colors
• Dynamics of Jupiter Trojans during the 2:1 mean motion resonance crossing of Jupiter and Saturn

Cited by in corpus (17)

• Aqueous alteration on main belt primitive asteroids: results from visible spectroscopy
• Different origins or different evolutions? Decoding the spectral diversity among C-type asteroids
• Eurybates - the only asteroid family among Trojans?
• Astronomical Observations of Volatiles on Asteroids
• Asteroid Family Physical Properties
• A Near-Infrared Search for Silicates in Jovian Trojan Asteroids
• Survival of water ice in Jupiter Trojans
• Stability of Jovian Trojans and their collisional families
• Compositional Constraints for Lucy Mission Trojan Asteroids via Near-Infrared Spectroscopy
• Visible Analysis of NASA Lucy Mission Targets Eurybates, Polymele, Orus and Donaldjohanson
• Shape models and spin states of Jupiter Trojans: Testing the streaming instability formation scenario
• JWST Near Infrared Spectroscopy of High Albedo Jupiter Trojans: A New Surface Type in the Trojan Belt
• Probing the surface environment of large T-type asteroids
• Photometric Confirmation and Characterization of the Ennomos Collisional Family in the Jupiter Trojans
• Evidence of Possible Spectral Variability in the Patroclus-Menoetius Binary System
• An ALMA search for high albedo objects among the mid-sized Jupiter Trojan population
• Mission to the Trojan Asteroids: lessons learned during a JPL Planetary Science Summer School mission design exercise