Cartography for Martian Trojans

Abstract

The last few months have seen the discovery of a second Martian Trojan (1998 VF31), as well as two further possible candidates (1998 QH56 and 1998 SD4). Together with the previously discovered Martian satellite 5261 Eureka, these are the only known possible solar system Trojan asteroids not associated with Jupiter. Here, maps of the locations of the stable Trojan trajectories of Mars are presented. These are constructed by integrating an ensemble of in-plane and inclined orbits in the vicinity of the Martian Lagrange points for between 25 million and 60 million years. The survivors occupy a band of inclinations between 15 degrees and 40 degrees and longitudes between 240 degrees and 330 degrees at the L5 Lagrange point. Around the L4 point, stable Trojans inhabit two bands of inclinations (15 degrees < i < 30 degrees and 32 degrees < i < 40 degrees) with longitudes restricted between 25 degrees and 120 degrees. Both 5261 Eureka and 1998 VF31 lie deep within one of the stable zones, which suggests they may be of primordial origin. Around Mars, the number of such undiscovered primordial objects with sizes greater than 1 km may be as high as 50. The two candidates 1998 QH56 and 1998 SD4 are not presently on Trojan orbits and will enter the sphere of influence of Mars within half a million years.

14 pages, 3 figures, in press at the Astrophysical Journal (Letters)

References in corpus (1)

• Long-term planetary integration with individual time steps

Cited by in corpus (17)

• Mars' Growth Stunted by an Early Giant Planet Instability
• The Capture of Centaurs as Trojans
• Asteroids in the Inner Solar System I - Existence
• Three new stable L5 Mars Trojans
• Composition of the L5 Mars Trojans: Neighbors, not Siblings
• Giga-Year Evolution of Jupiter Trojans and the Asymmetry Problem
• Orbital clustering of Martian Trojans: An asteroid family in the inner solar system?
• Albedos and diameters of three Mars Trojan asteroids
• Asteroids in the Inner Solar System II - Observable Properties
• An optimal Earth Trojan asteroid search strategy
• An optimal Mars Trojan asteroid search strategy
• Coorbital Satellites of Saturn: Congenital Formation
• Using Mars co-orbitals to estimate the importance of rotation-induced YORP break-up events in Earth co-orbital space
• Search strategies for Trojan asteroids in the inner Solar System
• Predictions for the Detection of Earth and Mars Trojan Asteroids by the Gaia satellite
• Dynamics of 2023 FW14, the second L4 Mars trojan, and a physical characterization using the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias
• Trojan asteroids and co-orbital dust ring of Venus