Probing surface inhomogeneities on Patroclus-Menoetius through hemispherically-resolved spectroscopy
PI:
Ian Wong
Co-I(s):
Richard Binzel, Joshua Emery, Will Grundy, Oriel Humes, Simone Marchi, Philippa Molyneux, Keith Noll
Abstract
Patroclus-Menoetius is an equal-mass binary system in the Jupiter Trojans and the largest member of the less-red Trojan subpopulation. It was selected as a flyby target of the NASA Lucy mission. Recent ground- and space-based spectroscopy of Patroclus-Menoetius revealed perplexing inconsistencies between spectra obtained at different epochs. In particular, HST/WFC3 observations showed a bump in reflectance between 300 and 400 nm, which may indicate the effects of space weathering on the surface. Meanwhile, the differing continuum shapes between observations obtained at different rotational phases suggest that large-scale inhomogeneities may be present. To address these issues, we propose to obtain a pair of 360-690 nm spectra of Patroclus-Menoetius at near-opposite rotational phases using the GMOS instrument on Gemini South. The resultant pair of high signal-to-noise spectra will confirm the spectral shape and provide the first direct constraint on the spatial inhomogeneity of a Jupiter Trojan.