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The Jupiter trojans, commonly called trojan asteroids or simply trojans, are a large group of asteroids that share the planet Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each trojan librates around one of Jupiter's stable Lagrange points: either L 4, existing 60° ahead of the planet in its orbit, or L 5, 60° behind.
Primordial asteroids entered these gaps because of the migration of Jupiter's orbit. [87] Subsequently, asteroids primarily migrate into these gap orbits due to the Yarkovsky effect, [72] but may also enter because of perturbations or collisions. After entering, an asteroid is gradually nudged into a different, random orbit with a larger or ...
Main Asteroid belt (main belt), between Mars and Jupiter, in near circular orbit, 2.2 to 3.2 AU Hungaria asteroids, small group, 1.78 to 2.00 AU; Alinda asteroids, small group, 2.5 AU in elliptical orbits; Hilda asteroid small group just inside Jupiter, 4.0 AU; Kuiper belt large belt, 43 to 64.5 AU; Scattered disc small group, 21.5 to 215 AU
Hence the smallest object orbits around the barycenter with the same orbital period as the planet, and the arrangement can remain stable over time. [1] In the Solar System, most known trojans share the orbit of Jupiter. They are divided into the Greek camp at L 4 (ahead of Jupiter) and the Trojan camp at L 5 (trailing Jupiter).
Lucy's main targets are the so-called Trojans, swarms of unexplored asteroids out near Jupiter that are considered to be time capsules from the dawn of the solar system. The spacecraft will swing ...
Asteroids are given minor planet numbers, but not all minor planets are asteroids. Minor planet numbers are also given to objects of the Kuiper belt , which is similar to the asteroid belt but farther out (around 30–60 AU), whereas asteroids are mostly between 2–3 AU from the Sun or at the orbit of Jupiter 5 AU from the Sun.
The asteroids are like fossils themselves, representing the leftover material hanging around after the formation of giant planets in our solar system, including Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Lucy is a NASA space probe on a twelve-year journey to eight different asteroids. It is slated to visit two main belt asteroids as well as six Jupiter trojans – asteroids that share Jupiter's orbit around the Sun, orbiting either ahead of or behind the planet. [4] [5] All target encounters will be flyby encounters. [6]