RUI: Photometric Survey of Jovian Trojans

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This project comprises a systematic study of the Jovian Trojan Asteroids, which lead and trail Jupiter at its stable Lagrange points. The study will test or constrain models suggesting that the Trojans formed in situ and others suggesting they were scattered from greater heliocentric distances. The proposing team will use 4-color (BVRI) optical photometry to distinguish the major compositional groups known among the Trojans from each other, and from compositional groups in the main asteroid belt. They will obtain BVRI colors of up to 200 Trojans and time-resolved light curves of up to 75, bringing the number of well-determined Trojan light curves close to 200, and will test whether different compositional groups have different rotation parameters, indicating either differences in material strength or collisional history. The team plans to compare the properties of the Trojans with main belt asteroids, Cybeles and Hildas (neighboring groups on the outer edge of the main belt), Kuiper Belt objects, and cometary nuclei. This Research in Undergraduate Institutions project will directly involve undergraduate students in the research as well as support the dissertation of a graduate student at a collaborating institution. Some of these students will be women and/or members of underrepresented groups. The methods and results will be incorporated into undergraduate classes reaching up to 300 students per year taught by the Principal Investigator and collaborators, who are frequent speakers in public outreach forums.