MEGASIM: Lifetimes and Resonances of Earth Trojan Asteroids—The Death of Primordial ETAs?
Abstract
Abstract We present an analysis of lifetimes and resonances of Earth Trojan Asteroids (ETAs) in the MEGASIM data set. Trojan asteroids co-orbit the Sun with a planet, but remain bound to the Lagrange points, L4 (60° leading the planet) or L5 (60° trailing). In the circular three-body approximation, the stability of a Trojan asteroid depends on the ratio of the host planet mass and the central mass. For the inner planets, the range of stability becomes increasingly small, so perturbations from the planets have made primordial Trojans rare. To date, there have been just two ETAs (2010 TK 7 and 2020 XL 5 ), several Mars Trojans, and a Venus Trojan discovered. The estimated lifetimes of the known inner system Trojans are shorter than a million years, suggesting they are interlopers rather than members of a stable and long-lasting population. With the largest ETA n -body simulation to date, we are able to track their survival across a wide initialized parameter space. We find that the remaining fraction of ETAs over time is well fit with a stretched exponential function that, when extrapolated beyond our simulation run time, predicts zero ETAs by 2.33 Gyr. We also show correlations between ETAmore »
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1891559
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 2212859
- Report Number(s):
- LLNL-JRNL-835967
Journal ID: ISSN 0004-637X
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC52-07NA27344
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: The Astrophysical Journal Journal Volume: 938 Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 0004-637X
- Publisher:
- American Astronomical Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; trojan asteroids; earth trojans; n-body simulations; asteroid dynamics; orbital resonances; orbital evolution; Lagrangian points
Citation Formats
Yeager, Travis, and Golovich, Nathan. MEGASIM: Lifetimes and Resonances of Earth Trojan Asteroids—The Death of Primordial ETAs?. United States: N. p., 2022.
Web. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac8e63.
Yeager, Travis, & Golovich, Nathan. MEGASIM: Lifetimes and Resonances of Earth Trojan Asteroids—The Death of Primordial ETAs?. United States. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac8e63
Yeager, Travis, and Golovich, Nathan. Mon .
"MEGASIM: Lifetimes and Resonances of Earth Trojan Asteroids—The Death of Primordial ETAs?". United States. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac8e63.
@article{osti_1891559,
title = {MEGASIM: Lifetimes and Resonances of Earth Trojan Asteroids—The Death of Primordial ETAs?},
author = {Yeager, Travis and Golovich, Nathan},
abstractNote = {Abstract We present an analysis of lifetimes and resonances of Earth Trojan Asteroids (ETAs) in the MEGASIM data set. Trojan asteroids co-orbit the Sun with a planet, but remain bound to the Lagrange points, L4 (60° leading the planet) or L5 (60° trailing). In the circular three-body approximation, the stability of a Trojan asteroid depends on the ratio of the host planet mass and the central mass. For the inner planets, the range of stability becomes increasingly small, so perturbations from the planets have made primordial Trojans rare. To date, there have been just two ETAs (2010 TK 7 and 2020 XL 5 ), several Mars Trojans, and a Venus Trojan discovered. The estimated lifetimes of the known inner system Trojans are shorter than a million years, suggesting they are interlopers rather than members of a stable and long-lasting population. With the largest ETA n -body simulation to date, we are able to track their survival across a wide initialized parameter space. We find that the remaining fraction of ETAs over time is well fit with a stretched exponential function that, when extrapolated beyond our simulation run time, predicts zero ETAs by 2.33 Gyr. We also show correlations between ETA ejections and the periods of the Milankovitch cycles. Though Earth’s orbital dynamics dominate the instabilities of ETAs, we provide evidence that ETA ejections are linked to resonances found in the variation of the orbital elements of many if not all of the planets.},
doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/ac8e63},
journal = {The Astrophysical Journal},
number = 1,
volume = 938,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Oct 10 00:00:00 EDT 2022},
month = {Mon Oct 10 00:00:00 EDT 2022}
}
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