(ORDO NEWS) — Jupiter is not alone in its orbital path around the sun. Two giant swarms of asteroids have become trapped in the gravitational interaction between the gas giant and our star, ahead and behind Jupiter in its cosmic dimension.
Between these swarms, collectively known as Trojans, we have identified more than 12,000 asteroids to date, but there is a curious mystery that has baffled scientists: the leading swarm, known as the Greeks or L4 swarm, has significantly more asteroids than the Trojans or L5 , although both groups appear to be equally stable. /p>
Now a group of scientists have an answer: the change in Jupiter’s distance from the Sun in the early days of the solar system. In particular, moving from a closer distance to its current orbit.
“We hypothesize that Jupiter’s outward, in terms of distance from the Sun, rapid movement of Jupiter could distort the configuration of the Trojan swarms, resulting in more stable orbits in the L4 swarm than in the L5 swarm,” says astronomer Jian Li from Nanjing University in China.
“This mechanism, which temporarily caused different evolutionary paths for the two groups of asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit, provides a new and natural explanation for the unbiased observation that L4 asteroids are about 1.6 times larger than the asteroids in the L5 swarm.”
L4 and L5 refer to Lagrange points, gravitationally stable points that occur when two bodies interact. Each two-body system has five Lagrange points where the gravitational interaction between the two bodies is balanced by the centripetal force needed to make the small body move with them.
Three of these points lie along the line connecting the two large bodies. The remaining two, L4 and L5, share the orbital path of the smaller of the two bodies, L4 ahead and L5 behind.
The Greeks and Jupiter Trojans, according to decades of research, should be just as numerous. These two populations have almost the same properties related to their stability and vitality, but the Greeks far outnumber the Trojans.
To find out why, Li and his colleagues decided to model Jupiter’s early evolution based on the giant planet’s so-called early instability.
This theory suggests that Jupiter did not form where it is now, but was pushed out. as a result of the gravitational destruction of another planetary body early in the history of the solar system.
The Grand Tech Hypothesis, which could solve several solar system problems, suggests that Jupiter moved inward toward the Sun and then back out. back to your current distance.
According to the group’s model, the asymmetry in the Trojan population can be reproduced during rapid outward migration during which Trojans are lost.
Greeks, on the other hand, get lost during internal migration. The team’s model suggests that Jupiter migrated outward more than inward, resulting in an increase in the Greek population.
This scenario differs from the 2019 study, which found that the asymmetry was solely the result of internal migration, but it fits better with the Grand Tek hypothesis.
The model in its current form is a rather interesting starting point, but the researchers note that it is relatively crude.
Future research may help build a more detailed model to find out if the number, order, or duration of migrations is related to the number of Trojans.
Potential impacts have not been considered in current work. Saturn, Uranus or Neptune too. For a more accurate result, these bodies could also be included.
Identifying more Trojans will provide a more accurate description of the population of these objects, which will also help refine future analyses, the researchers say. But the direction of research looks promising.
“The characteristics of the current solar system hold unsolved mysteries about its formation and early evolution,” says astronomer Nikolaos Georgakarakos of New York University Abu Dhabi in the United States. United Arab Emirates.
“Being able to successfully model an event early in the Solar System and apply those results to modern questions could also be a key tool as astrophysicists and other researchers work to learn more about the dawn of our world.”
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