Masses of the Trojan Groups of Jupiter

E. V. Pitjeva, N. P. Pitjev

Astronomy Letters, 45, 855–860 (2019)

DOI: 10.1134/S1063773719120041

Keywords: Solar system, planetary ephemerides, Jupiter’s Trojans, dynamical masses

Abstract

The possibility of obtaining dynamical estimates of the total masses in the two Trojan asteroid groups of Jupiter is investigated. The compact Greek (L4) and Trojan (L5) groups contain several tens of thousands of asteroids near the stable Lagrange points moving in a 1: 1 resonance with the orbital motion of Jupiter. The dynamical mass estimates—M_L4 = (8.63 ± 0.51) × 10^(−6) M⊕, M_L5 = (5.46 ± 0.54) × 10^(−6) M⊕—have been obtained by processing more than 800 thousand observations of planets and spacecraft using the new EPM2019 version of planetary ephemerides created at IAA RAS.