The olivine-dominated composition of the Eureka family of Mars Trojan asteroids

We have used the XSHOOTER echelle spectrograph on the European Southern Obseratory (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) to obtain UVB-VIS-NIR (ultraviolet-blue (UVB), visible (VIS) and near-infrared (NIR)) reflectance spectra of two members of the Eureka family of L5 Mars Trojans, in order to test a genetic relationship to Eureka. In addition to obtaining spectra, we also carried out VRI photometry of one of the VLT targets using the 2-m telescope at the Bulgarian National Astronomical Observatory - Rozhen and the two-channel focal reducer. We found that these asteroids belong to the olivine-dominated A, or Sa, taxonomic class. As Eureka itself is also an olivine-dominated asteroid, it is likely that all family asteroids share a common origin and composition. We discuss the significance of these results in terms of the origin of the martian Trojan population.