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Monday, March 25, 2013

Astronomers have discovered a new group of Trojan asteroids of Mars


Astronomers from the Arman Observatory, United Kingdom, led by Apostolos A. Christou reported finding a new family of Trojan asteroids of Mars.

The orbital evolution of the detected lasted about 100 million years, scientists say, and the orbits of the asteroids orbit recall now the largest of the known Trojan asteroids of Mars Eureka 5261. This group forms a cluster within a region of space, which is usually the most stable are the Trojan asteroids.


Among the objects found there was quite a bit of asteroids larger than 1 kilometer. This led scientists to believe that an open cluster of asteroids formed as a result of the natural fragmentation of a common ancestor - a Trojan asteroid of Mars from the Lagrangian point L5.

Based on the scenario of crushing, the astronomers were able to estimate the approximate age of this group "Trojans", which turned out to be about 2 billion years.

The researchers say their work represents the first direct observation of the orbital cluster of asteroids from the inner solar system near the Earth.

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