Related papers: A Dedicated Lunar Trojan Asteroid Survey with Smal…
We present a new crater chronology for Jupiter's Trojan asteroids. This tool can be used to interpret the collisional history of the bodies observed by NASA's Lucy mission. The Lucy mission will visit a total of six Trojan asteroids:…
We analyze 1187 observations of about 860 unique candidate Jovian Trojan asteroids listed in the 3rd release of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Moving Object Catalog. The sample is complete at the faint end to r=21.2 mag (apparent…
Earth co-orbitals of the horseshoe type are interesting objects to study for practical reasons. They are relatively easy to access from our planet and that makes them attractive targets for sample return missions. Here, we show that…
We present an analysis of survey observations of the trailing L5 Jupiter Trojan swarm using the wide-field Hyper Suprime-Cam CCD camera on the 8.2 m Subaru Telescope. We detected 189 L5 Trojans from our survey that covered about 15 deg^2 of…
We demonstrate dynamical pathways from main-belt asteroid and Centaur orbits to those in co-orbital motion with Jupiter, including the retrograde (inclination $i>90^o$) state. We estimate that at any given time, there should be $\sim1$…
Context. Trojan asteroids of Mars date from an early phase of solar system evolution. Based on a sample of <10 asteroids, MT distribution has been previously shown to be both asymmetric and inhomogeneous with population evolution dominated…
The NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a new 8m-class survey facility presently being commissioned in Chile, expected to begin the 10yr-long Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) by the end of 2025. Using the purpose-built Sorcha survey…
Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) that orbit the Sun on or within Earth's orbit are tricky to detect for Earth-based observers due to their proximity to the Sun in the sky. These small bodies hold clues to the dynamical history of the inner solar…
Of the four giant planets in the Solar system, only Jupiter and Neptune are currently known to possess swarms of Trojan asteroids - small objects that experience a 1:1 mean motion resonance with their host planet. In Lykawka et al. (2009),…
The Gaia satellite, planned for launch by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2013, is the next generation astrometry mission following Hipparcos. While mapping the whole sky, the Gaia space mission is expected to discover thousands of Solar…
Despite the existence of co-orbital bodies in the solar system, and the prediction of the formation of co-orbital planets by planetary system formation models, no co-orbital exoplanets (also called trojans) have been detected thus far. Here…
Currently, 20 co-orbital asteroids of Venus are known, with only one with an eccentricity below 0.38. This is most likely caused by observational biases since asteroids with larger eccentricities may approach the Earth and are easier to…
Through multiple, small unmanned probes we can more efficiently capture an asteroid and return it to lunar orbit. The Asteroid Return and Exploration System (ARES) aims to make use of previously tested technology with the application of a…
Photometry from the Helios and STEREO spacecraft revealed regions of enhanced sky surface-brightness suggesting a narrow circumsolar ring of dust associated with Venus's orbit. We model this phenomenon by integrating the orbits of…
It is widely accepted that a quasi-steady-state flux of minor bodies moving in and out of the co-orbital state with the Earth may exist. Some of these objects are very good candidates for future in situ study due to their favourable…
The existence of Earth's Trojan asteroids is not well constrained and represents a major gap in our inventory of small bodies in near-Earth space. Their discovery would be of high scientific and human interest.
The rotational properties of small near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) provide crucial insights into their internal structure and collisional history. However, systematic surveys targeting metre- to decametre-sized bodies are rare, thus leaving…
Using N-body simulation results from the MEGASIM dataset, we present spatial distributions of Earth Trojan Asteroids and assess the detectability of the population in current and next-generation ground-based astronomical surveys (Yeager &…
Using a fully autonomous spacecraft - Bering - we propose to detect and study sub-km asteroids from an orbit within the asteroid Main Belt. The main purpose of the proposed Bering mission is to detect a statistically significant sample of…
Trojans are small bodies in planetary Lagrangian points. In our solar system, Jupiter has the largest number of such companions. Their existence is assumed for exoplanetary systems as well, but none has been found so far. We present an…