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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.
Position of 2010 TK 7 relative to Earth in 2011 Effective potential plot showing Earth's Lagrangian points (not to scale); contours around L 4 and L 5 represent tadpole loop paths. Because Earth trojans share Earth's orbit and have little gravity of their own, less energy might be needed to reach them than the Moon, even though they are much ...
There are 28 known Neptunian trojans, [11] but the large Neptunian trojans are expected to outnumber the large Jovian trojans by an order of magnitude. [12] [13] 2010 TK 7 was confirmed to be the first known Earth trojan in 2011. It is located in the L 4 Lagrangian point, which lies ahead of the Earth.
(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 ...
Earth trojans are asteroids located in the Earth–Sun Lagrangian points L 4 and L 5. Their location in the sky as observed from Earth's surface would be fixed at about 60 degrees east and west of the Sun, and as people tend to search for asteroids at much greater elongations few searches have been done in these locations.
Earth trojans: (706765) 2010 TK 7 and (614689) 2020 XL 5. Mars trojans: (121514) 1999 UJ 7, 5261 Eureka, (101429) 1998 VF 31, (311999) 2007 NS 2, (385250) 2001 DH 47, 2011 SC 191, 2011 UN 63, and the candidate 2011 SL 25. Jupiter trojans: the first one was discovered in 1906, 588 Achilles, and the current total is over 6,000.
As of 2015, there are also 13 Neptune trojans, 7 Mars trojans, 2 Uranus trojans ((687170) 2011 QF 99 and (636872) 2014 YX 49), and 2 Earth trojans (2010 TK 7 and (614689) 2020 XL 5) that are known to exist. No Saturnian trojans have been observed until the discovery of 2019 UO14.
The Spitzer Space Telescope is in an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit drifting away c. 0.1 AU per year. In c. 2013–15 it has passed L 5 in its orbit. Hayabusa2 passed near L 5 during the spring of 2017, and imaged the surrounding area to search for Earth trojans on 18 April 2018. [15]