Mars follows, but Trojan asteroid 101429 may be related …

Mars is infested, not only with people keeping an eye on future missions and potential off-earth colonies, but also with another space rock.

This asteroid is much smaller than the red planet. Otherwise known as a Trojan, it follows the orbit of a planet because it is gravitationally trapped at 60 degrees in front of or behind that planet. It may have detached from the moon when intense collisions were still shaping the early solar system. An international team of planetary astronomers and researchers at the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium (AOP) in Northern Ireland observed this with the X-SHOOTER spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope. X-SHOOTER (which totally sounds like the Star Wars tech that accompanies an X-Wing) has revealed something odd.

It turns out that despite Mars being lagging behind, asteroid 101429 appears to share DNA with the moon. Further studies will show whether it is indeed a lunar fragment that broke in a massive accident billions of years ago. It could be from Mars or the main inner asteroid belt. However, X-SHOOTER measured its brightness at different wavelengths of light which showed its spectral profile. The research team led by astronomer Apostolos Christou, who recently conducted a study published in Ikarus, he realized that his spectral DNA had more in common with the moon than anything else.

“Asteroids shine through reflected sunlight so that the profile determined by X-SHOOTER always shows the spectrum of the sun,” Christou told SYFY wire. “But astronomers can explain it and create a characteristic profile of the asteroid that produced it. This can then be used to compare the asteroid to other asteroids, meteorites, or even planetary surfaces. ”

What kind of minerals are present on the surface of an asteroid can be determined by their different colors, which is why spectral profiles can reveal where this piece of cosmic debris comes from, but it’s not always easy to find out. Sometimes they share DNA with more than one other object. The spectrum of 101429 showed high pyroxene values, as are common with planet-sized objects. The lunar surface has an abundance of pyroxy. Most of it is found in the walls and craters, but this mineral is also found in smaller but still significant amounts on Mars, but Mars has the amount of pyroxene it needs because it is much larger than the moon.

The suspicion of Mars was strongest when 101429 was most closely related to the other Trojans it was related to, the Eureka family. The problem is that their chemical compositions don’t match. 101429 is rich in pyroxene, while the Eureka asteroids are rich in olivine. This is an indication of their origin in a planetary mantle. Olivine is usually found deep in the mantle of a planet’s entrails, while pyroxene tends to be found in the crust. Christou believes there is another reason why a Martian origin may be possible.

“One of the origins of this asteroid from Mars is tempting in that it requires less energy – hence a smaller impact device – to launch the asteroid from Mars to its Trojan clouds relative to the moon. “He said.

Mars has a crater that could reveal the origins of 101429. Its boreal basin is nearly as wide as the entire planet and anything ejected from the collision that left a crater in that location would have facilitated the passage of the rubble. where 101429 is now.

This still does not rule out the moon. What planets and other bodies are made of depends on the materials available in the area in which they formed. The moon and Mars are largely made of the same material, and although the quantities vary, it means that they formed roughly the same distance from the sun. The Trojans arouse so much scientific curiosity because they are relics of the early stages of the solar system, when larger planets and moons are formed. Some Mars Trojans have been found closer to the Sun, which should be understandable as their composition suggests they formed in the same area.

“Water and other volatiles don’t exist in solid form near the sun, and all you need to create planets is stone and metal,” Christou said.

So is there a definitive way to prove whether 101429 is a disembodied piece of the Moon or Mars? Before this can happen, more data is needed. The only way to be sure is to measure its composition directly or send a spaceship to capture a sample and bring it back to Earth. Upcoming telescopes that are more powerful than anything we have right now, such as the James Webb Telescope and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, could relay this information to us, and GAIA could see something in the meantime.

At the moment it looks like Mars has a fan base.