A Collision Mechanism for the Removal of Earth's Trojan Asteroids
A Collision Mechanism for the Removal of Earth's Trojan Asteroids
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DOI：
10.3847/psj/ac6958
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发表时间：
2022-04
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
K. Napier;L. Markwardt;F. Adams;D. Gerdes;Hsing 省文 Wen Lin 林
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文献类型：
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作者：
K. Napier;L. Markwardt;F. Adams;D. Gerdes;Hsing 省文 Wen Lin 林
由于它们与宿主行星的强烈共振，特洛伊小行星可以在数十亿年内保持稳定的轨道。因此，它们是制约太阳系动力学和化学历史的强有力的探测器。虽然我们已经检测到数千个木星特洛伊木马和数十个海王星特洛伊木马，但目前还没有已知的长期稳定的地球特洛伊木马。动力学模拟表明，稳定的粒子的参数空间是巨大的，因此它们的明显缺失构成了一个谜。这项工作使用了大量的N体模拟来探索特洛伊人口如何动态响应，如果地球遭受大型碰撞，例如那些被认为已经发生形成月球和/或给地球带来后期装饰的碰撞。我们表明，这种碰撞可能是高度破坏性的原始特洛伊人口，并可能完全消除它。更具体地说，如果地球通过10次碰撞获得了最后1%的质量，那么之前绑定的特洛伊人口将只剩下101%。
Due to their strong resonances with their host planet, Trojan asteroids can remain in stable orbits for billions of years. As a result, they are powerful probes for constraining the dynamical and chemical history of the solar system. Although we have detected thousands of Jupiter Trojans and dozens of Neptune Trojans, there are currently no known long-term stable Earth Trojans (ETs). Dynamical simulations show that the parameter space for stable ETs is substantial, so their apparent absence poses a mystery. This work uses a large ensemble of N-body simulations to explore how the Trojan population dynamically responds if Earth suffers large collisions, such as those thought to have occurred to form the Moon and/or to have given Earth its late veneer. We show that such collisions can be highly disruptive to the primordial Trojan population, and could have eliminated it altogether. More specifically, if Earth acquired the final 1% of its mass through (10) collisions, then only ∼1% of the previously bound Trojan population would remain.