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In astronomy, a trojan is a small celestial body (mostly asteroids) that shares the orbit of a larger body, remaining in a stable orbit approximately 60° ahead of or behind the main body near one of its Lagrangian points L 4 and L 5. Trojans can share the orbits of planets or of large moons. Trojans are one type of co-orbital object.
Asteroids in the leading (L 4) orbit are named after Greek heroes (the "Greek node or camp" or "Achilles group"), and those at the trailing (L 5) orbit are named after the heroes of Troy (the "Trojan node or camp"). [2] The asteroids 617 Patroclus and 624 Hektor were named before the Greece/Troy rule was devised, resulting in a "Greek spy ...
An Earth trojan is an asteroid that orbits the Sun in the vicinity of the Earth–Sun Lagrange points L 4 (leading 60°) or L 5 (trailing 60°), thus having an orbit similar to Earth's. Only two Earth trojans have so far been discovered.
Asteroids in the L 4 and L 5 Sun–Mars Lagrangian points are sometimes called Mars trojans, with a lower-case t, as "Trojan asteroid" was originally defined as a term for Lagrangian asteroids of Jupiter. They may also be called Mars Lagrangian asteroids.
WISE, a space telescope launched into Earth orbit in December 2009, imaged 2010 TK 7 in October 2010 while carrying out a program to scan the entire sky from January 2010 to February 2011. Spotting an asteroid sharing Earth 's orbit is normally difficult from the ground, because their potential locations are generally in the daytime sky. [ 8 ]
Astronomers spotted a possible “sibling” planet that shares the orbit of another exoplanet in a system located 370 light-years away.
(614689) 2020 XL 5 (provisional designation 2020 XL 5) is a near-Earth asteroid and Earth trojan discovered by the Pan-STARRS 1 survey at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii on 12 December 2020. It oscillates around the Sun – Earth L 4 Lagrangian point (leading 60°), one of the dynamically stable locations where the combined gravitational force ...
"Binary asteroid systems represent about 10-15% of the total number of asteroids that are in near-Earth space," Barnouin said. ... an asteroid or asteroid system, we learn more about how asteroids ...