Earth Has Another Trojan Asteroid Sharing Its Orbit
Astronomers have discovered only the second Earth Trojan asteroid in space, one that shares its orbit with the blue planet and will hold on to that distinction for the next four thousand years. Trojan asteroids are celestial bodies that revolve around the sun following the same orbital path as its 'parent' planet. Trojans are found orbiting a sun-planet system's L4 and L5 Lagrange points. For the unaware, Lagrange points are positions in space where the gravitational pull between the sun and a planet is equal to the centripetal force for a third small body to move with them.
Since the gravitational and centripetal forces cancel out each other at these points, an object positioned at one of these equilibrium positions tends to stay put. For example, if a spacecraft is injected at a Lagrange point, it will remain in that position without burning fuel. The James Webb Space Telescope will perform its observation duties while sitting at one such Lagrange point. There are five Lagrange points in total — L1, L2, and L3 are said to be unstable, while L4 and L5 are touted to be the stable positions. There is no shortage of Trojan asteroids sitting in Lagrange point of planets in the solar system. Jupiter has the highest number of Trojan asteroids, Mars has a few as well, and even moons of Saturn have their own Trojan asteroids.
Related: NASA Is Going To Chase An Asteroid Using A Solar Sail
Earth was known to have one as well, and it's called 2010 TK7. Now, it's got another one. An international team with experts from the University of Alicante and the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona have confirmed the discovery of a second Earth Trojan. This one goes by the name 2020 XL5. It took scientists a decade to
Read more on screenrant.com
