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The upper diagram shows Ceres's orbit from top down. The bottom diagram is a side view showing Ceres's orbital inclination to the ecliptic. Lighter shades indicate above the ecliptic; darker indicate below. Ceres follows an orbit between Mars and Jupiter, near the middle of the asteroid belt, with an orbital period (year) of 4.6 Earth years. [2]
In April 2016, the Dawn project team submitted a proposal to NASA for an extended mission that would have seen the spacecraft break orbit from Ceres and perform a flyby of the asteroid 145 Adeona in May 2019, [147] arguing that the science gained from visiting a third asteroid might outweigh the returns from staying at Ceres. [89]
(76146) 2000 EU 16 is a small asteroid in the main-belt and discovered by LINEAR on 3 March 2000 in Lincoln Lab ETS, and the only known quasi-satellite of the dwarf planet asteroid 1 Ceres. From the perspective of Ceres, its orbit traces an analemma. [3]
In 2016, astronomers spotted an asteroid about the size of a ferris wheel in an Earth-like orbit around the Sun. Turns out it's actually a chunk of the moon.
The capture of an asteroid from a heliocentric orbit is not always permanent. According to simulations, temporary satellites should be a common phenomenon. [18] [19] The only observed examples are 1991 VG, 2006 RH 120, 2020 CD 3. 2006 RH 120 was a temporary satellite of Earth for nine months in 2006 and 2007. [20] [21]
However, Ceres (r = 470 km) is the smallest body for which detailed measurements are consistent with hydrostatic equilibrium, [8] whereas Iapetus (r = 735 km) is the largest icy body that has been found to not be in hydrostatic equilibrium. [9]
Pluto's four other moons, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx are far smaller and orbit the Pluto–Charon system. [5] Among the other dwarf planets, Ceres has no known moons. It is 90 percent certain that Ceres has no moons larger than 1 km in size, assuming that they would have the same albedo as Ceres itself. [6] Eris has one large known moon ...
Asteroid (706765) 2010 TK 7 is the first discovered tadpole orbit companion to Earth, orbiting L 4; like Earth, its mean distance to the Sun is about one astronomical unit. Asteroid (614689) 2020 XL 5 is the second Earth trojan, confirmed in November 2021, oscillating around L 4 in a tadpole orbit and expected to remain there for at least 4000 ...