Detection of inner Solar System Trojan Asteroids by Gaia

Mick Todd (1) , Paolo Tanga (2) , David M. Coward (3) , Marjan G. Zadnik (1)

1 Department of Imaging and Applied Physics
2 LAGRANGE - Joseph Louis LAGRANGE
3 School of Physics

The Gaia satellite, planned for launch by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2013, is the next generation astrometry mission following Hipparcos. While mapping the whole sky, the Gaia space mission is expected to discover thousands of Solar System Objects. These will include Near-Earth Asteroids and objects at Solar elongations as low as 45 degrees, which are difficult to observe with ground-based telescopes. We present the results of simulations for the detection of Trojan asteroids in the orbits of Earth and Mars by Gaia.

Domaines: Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]; Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]

Mick Todd, Paolo Tanga, David M. Coward, Marjan G. Zadnik. Detection of inner Solar System Trojan Asteroids by Gaia. GAIA-FUN-SSO 2012: Second "Gaia Follow-up Network for Solar System Objects", Workshop held at IMCCE / Paris Observatory, 2012, September 19 - 21, Sep 2012, Paris, France. pp. 59-62. ⟨hal-00836743⟩