An optimal Mars Trojan asteroid search strategy

TL;DR

This paper develops an optimized search strategy for Mars Trojan asteroids, leveraging models to identify the most promising sky areas and suggesting Gaia's potential to detect Trojans larger than 1 km.

Contribution

It introduces a new model for optimal sky search areas and proposes an efficient survey strategy for detecting Mars Trojans, enhancing current search methodologies.

Findings

Gaia can detect Mars Trojans >1 km if relative motion is <0.40 arcsec/sec

Optimal sky search areas improve detection efficiency

Model constrains where to focus telescope surveys

Abstract

Trojan asteroids are minor planets that share the orbit of a planet about the Sun and librate around the L4 or L5 Lagrangian points of stability. Although only three Mars Trojans have been discovered, models suggest that at least ten times this number should exist with diameters >= 1 km. We derive a model that constrains optimal sky search areas and present a strategy for the most efficient use of telescope survey time that maximizes the probability of detecting Mars Trojans. We show that the Gaia space mission could detect any Mars Trojans larger than 1 km in diameter, provided the relative motion perpendicular to Gaia's CCD array is less than 0.40 arcsec per second.