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Title:
Is Amalthea a Captured Trojan Asteroid of Jupiter?
Authors:
Prentice, Andrew J. R.
Publication:
Highlights of Astronomy, Vol. 13, as presented at the XXVth General Assembly of the IAU - 2003 [Sydney, Australia, 13 - 26 July 2003]. Edited by O. Engvold. San Francisco, CA: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, ISBN 1-58381-189-3. XXIX + 1085 pp., 2005, p.901
Publication Date:
01/2005
Origin:
ARI; ADS
Bibliographic Code:
2005HiA....13..901P

Abstract

In 2002 the Galileo spacecraft discovered that the small irregular Jovian moon Amalthea is a porous assemblage of rock and ice. Its bulk density is ~1 g/cc. This is much less than the value ~3.8 g/cc expected
of the mixture of rock and metal that would condense at its distance from Jupiter had Amalthea formed from a gas ring shed by the proto-Jovian cloud (Prentice 2001 Earth Moon Planets 87 11). Thus rather
than being a native moon of Jupiter (and especially because of its small size relative to the Galilean satellites) Amalthea is probably a captured asteroid. Prentice and ter Haar (1979 Nature 280 300) had predicted Amalthea to be a C-type asteroid. Galileo has found Amalthea to be even less dense than the porous main-belt C-asteroid Mathilde so suggesting the presence of some ice. Most likely therefore Amalthea originally condensed as a planetesimal from the gas ring shed by the proto-Solar cloud at the orbit of Jupiter. The predicted bulk chemical composition by mass is asteroidal rock (65%) graphite (1%) and water ice
(34%) [see Prentice 2001 in URL: www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/mercury01]. The zero-porosity density is 1.8 g/cc. Amalthea is simply a first cousin
of the Trojan asteroids of Jupiter.
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