103 research outputs found
Earth Trojan asteroids: A study in support of observational searches
Observational searches for asteroids orbiting near Earth's triangular
Lagrange points face unique obstacles. A population of such asteroids would
occupy a large projected area on the sky (possibly hundreds of square degrees)
and is not favorably placed with respect to the Sun. Here we examine the
properties of synthetic populations of Earth ``Trojans'' in order to aid in the
optimization of observational searches for them. We find that the highest
on-sky projected number densities are not located at the positions of the L4
and L5 points themselves, but rather a few degrees closer to the Sun. Also,
asteroids on orbits about the L4 and L5 points typically brighten as the
difference between their ecliptic longitude and that of the Sun increases owing
to phase effects, but their number density on the sky concurrently falls
rapidly.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures and 3 tables. Submitted to Icaru
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