The Visible Spectral Properties of Trojans and NEOs

特洛伊小行星以与木星1：1的共振方式围绕太阳运行，以木星的L4和L5拉格朗日点为中心，并围绕其摆动。特洛伊木马最初被认为是从小行星带的外部捕获的，根据更新的理论，它是在太阳系小型天体极度混合的时期从柯伊伯带捕获的。对这些天体的深入研究为早期太阳系的动力混合程度以及原始体的组成提供了约束。在这个项目中，首席调查者和合作者将使用亚利桑那州和南非的地面望远镜，对数百颗特洛伊小行星以及数十个近地天体进行可见光和近红外光谱观测，从而获得分类和光谱斜率。确定不同大小的特洛伊木马的主要分类类别的相对比例将限制早期太阳系“尼斯模型”所暗示的动态混合。通过结合新数据和档案数据，该团队还希望确定所看到的不同光谱类型是否与“空间风化”过程有关，或者实际上反映了组成上的差异。近地天体观测将补充其他正在进行的观测计划，旨在帮助及时确定潜在危险物体和可能的空间飞行任务目标的特征。

The Trojan asteroids orbit the Sun in a 1:1 resonance with Jupiter, centered on, and librating around, that planet's L4 and L5 Lagrange points. Originally thought to have been captured form the outer parts of the asteroid belt, the Trojans are proposed in newer theories to have been captured from the Kuiper belt during a period of extreme mixing of the small bodies of the Solar System. In-depth study of these objects provides constraints on the degree of dynamical mixing in the early Solar System as well as on the compositions of primitive bodies. In this project, the Principal Investigator and collaborators will use ground-based telescopes in Arizona and South Africa to make visible and near-infrared spectrophotometric observations of hundreds of Trojan asteroids as well as dozens of near-Earth objects (NEOs), obtaining taxonomic classifications and spectral slopes. Determining the relative fractions of the dominant taxonomic classes at different sizes of Trojans will constrain dynamical mixing implied by the "Nice Model" of the early Solar System. By combining new and archival data, the team hopes also to determine whether the different spectral types seen are related by "space weathering" processes or actually reflect compositional differences. The NEO observations will complement other ongoing observational programs and are designed to aid in the timely characterization of potentially hazardous objects and possible space mission targets.