Earth's Trojans

[Christopher K.]

NEOWISE, a portion of the WISE mission that focuses on near-Earth objects, has detected the first asteroid found in Earth's orbit. 2010 TK7 is about 300 meters across, and its Trojan status was confirmed with work at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.

A Trojan leads or follows a planet by about sixty degrees, around areas known as Lagrange points.

Mars has three, Neptune has four and Jupiter has several hundred Trojans. Researchers from the Carnegie Institution and Gemini Observatory discovered three new Neptune Trojans in 2006. The first Neptune Trojan has been found in 2001.

Observations of 2010 TK7 have been performed at Siding Spring and Mount John Observatory.

More information:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/ ... 10727.html

2010 TK7's Minor Planet Electronic Circular: http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K10/K10T45.html

[Christopher K.]

Earth has a confirmed second Trojan! This comes from two-sentence teaser in the June Astronomy (page nine). Simulations show the object became a Trojan of Earth probably 600 years ago, and some predictions have it remaining so 4000 to 5000 more years.

PanSTARRS-1 discovered 2020 XL5 in December of that year.

More information:
https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2022/02/02/ ... -asteroid/
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/bad-astr ... -confirmed
https://www.space.com/earth-extra-moon- ... -discovery