FOSSIL. I. The Spin Rate Limit of Jupiter Trojans
Abstract
Rotation periods of 53 small (diameters 2 km < D < 40 km) Jupiter Trojans (JTs) were derived using the high-cadence lightcurves obtained by the FOSSIL phase I survey, a Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam intensive program. These are the first reported periods measured for JTs with D < 10 km. We found a lower limit of the rotation period near 4 hr, instead of the previously published result of 5 hr found for larger JTs. Assuming a rubble-pile structure for JTs, a bulk density of ≈0.9 g cm-3 is required to withstand this spin rate limit, consistent with the value ~0.8-1.0 g cm-3 derived from the binary JT system, (617) Patroclus-Menoetius system.
- Publication:
-
The Planetary Science Journal
- Pub Date:
- October 2021
- DOI:
- 10.3847/PSJ/ac13a4
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2107.06685
- Bibcode:
- 2021PSJ.....2..191C
- Keywords:
-
- Jupiter trojans;
- Asteroid rotation;
- Time series analysis;
- Time domain astronomy;
- 874;
- 2211;
- 1916;
- 2109;
- Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- Accepted by PSJ on July 9th, 2021. 15 pages, 7 figures, and 3 tables