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Mars is being haunted, not just by humans who have their sights set on future missions and potential colonies outside of Earth, but by 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 from the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium (AOP) in Northern Ireland observed it with the Very Large Telescope’s X-SHOOTER spectrograph. X-SHOOTER (which totally sounds like Star Wars tech belonging to an X-wing) has revealed something strange.
It turns out that despite the entrainment of Mars, asteroid 101429 appears to share DNA with the Moon. Further studies will tell whether it is actually a fragment of the moon that broke during a massive accident billions of years ago. It could be from Mars or the main internal asteroid belt. However, X-SHOOTER measured its brightness at different wavelengths of light which showed its spectral profile. The research team, led by the astronomer Apostolos Christou, who recently conducted a study published in Icarus, he realized that his spectral DNA had more in common with the Moon than anything else.
“Asteroids shine from reflected sunlight, so the profile determined by X-SHOOTER will always show the spectrum of the Sun,” Christou told SYFY wire. “But astronomers can explain it and find a characteristic profile of the asteroid that produced it. This can then be used to compare the asteroid with other asteroids, meteorites or even planetary surfaces. “
What kinds of minerals are present on an asteroid’s surface can be determined by their various colors, which is why spectral profiles can reveal where that piece of cosmic debris came 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 levels of pyroxene, which is common on planet-sized objects. The surface of the Moon has an abundance of pyroxene. Most of it is found in the walls and craters, but this mineral also exists in smaller but still substantial quantities on Mars, but Mars has the amount of pyroxene it has because it is much larger than the Moon.
The suspicion of Mars was strongest when 101429 was most closely associated with 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 Eureka asteroids contain high amounts of olivine. This is indicative of their origin from what must now be a planetary mantle. Olivine is usually found in the bowels of a planet, deep in the mantle, while pyroxene tends to remain in the crust. Christou believes there is another reason why a Martian origin might be possible.
“An origin of this asteroid from Mars is also tempting, in the sense that it takes less energy – hence a smaller impact device – to hurl the asteroid from Mars to its Trojan clouds rather than take it all the way to the Moon,” He said.
Mars has a crater that could betray the origins of 101429. Its boreal basin is almost as wide as the entire planet and anything that was ejected from the collision that left a crater behind at that location would have made it easier to create debris. where is now 101429.
This still does not exclude the Moon. What planets and other bodies are made of has to do with the materials available in the area where they form. The Moon and Mars are mostly made of the same matter, and although the quantities vary, this means that they formed roughly the same distance from the Sun. Trojans cause so much scientific curiosity because they are relics of the early stages of the system. solar when larger planets and moons are formed. There have been a few Martian Trojans found closer to the Sun, which should be understandable since their composition says they must have formed around the same area.
“Near the Sun, water and other volatiles don’t exist in solid form, and all you need to do to create planets is rock and metal,” Christou said.
So is there a definitive way to prove whether 101429 is a disembodied piece of the Moon or Mars? More data is needed before this can happen. The only way to be sure is to measure its composition directly or send a spacecraft to capture a sample and bring it back to Earth. The next telescopes more powerful than anything we have now, such as the James Webb Telescope and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, may be relaying this information to us, and GAIA may be able to see something in the meantime.
For now, it looks like Mars has a fan base.
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