Second ever Earth trojan asteroid will share an orbit with earth for 4000 years

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-02-02 03:00

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A Trojan asteroid has been discovered sharing the same stable orbit as Earth, according to international researchers, who say this asteroid will remain in position for at least 4000 years and is a great candidate for future fly-by missions. The researchers suggest the asteroid, named 2020 XL5, is located at a special position in its orbit where the gravitational force of the Sun and the Earth is balanced, allowing objects in this position to remain in a stable orbit around the sun. Asteroids orbiting in this position are called Trojan asteroids, and 2020 XL5 is the second-ever discovered around Earth, they say. The team used ground-based observations to determine that the asteroid is most likely composed of carbon, and may have been ejected from the main asteroid belt by Jupiter.

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From: Springer Nature

Astronomy: Second Earth Trojan asteroid identified

The recently discovered 2020 XL5 asteroid is confirmed as the second transient Earth Trojan asteroid to be identified, reports a study in Nature Communications. The findings suggest it will remain in its orbit for at least 4,000 years.

Trojan asteroids are small bodies sharing an orbit with a planet, which remain in a stable orbit approximately 60° ahead of or behind the main body. Such peculiar orbits provide important constraints for models of the evolution of the Solar System. Although Trojan asteroids have been observed around other planets in the Solar System, there has only been one Earth Trojan asteroid identified so far (called 2010 TK7). 2020 XL5 was discovered on the 12th December 2020 and early observations suggested that it could be an Earth Trojan asteroid, but due to low observational coverage, orbital uncertainties were too large for confirmation.

Toni Santana-Ros and colleagues studied the orbit of 2020 XL5 by combining archival data with observations they performed from three ground-based observatories. Using these analyses, they confirm that 2020 XL5 is an Earth Trojan asteroid. They propose it is a C-complex type asteroid, which is predominately composed of carbon. The authors conducted an orbital stability analysis and suggest that 2020 XL5 will remain in its orbit for at least 4,000 years. They suggest the asteroid could have been ejected from the main asteroid belt, following an interaction with Jupiter, however further research would be needed to confirm the origins of 2020 XL5.

The authors note that 2020 XL5 is a larger asteroid than 2010 TK7 and may be a better candidate for a future fly-by mission.

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Journal/
conference: Nature Communications

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Universidad de Alicante, Spain

Funder: The work of TS-R was carried out through grant APOSTD/2019/046 by Generalitat Valenciana (Spain). This work was (partially) funded by the Spanish MICIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe” by the “European Union” through grant RTI2018-095076-B-C21, and the Institute of Cosmos Sciences University of Barcelona (ICCUB, Unidad de Excelencia ‘María de Maeztu’) through grant CEX2019-000918-M. P-YL acknowledges NEO-MAPP project under H2020-SPACE-2019 GA 870377. PGB, and ACB acknowledge funding from the Spanish MICINN project RTI2018-099464-B-I00. AA-C acknowledges support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017- 0709). DO was supported by National Science Centre, Poland, grants numbers 2017/26/ D/ST9/00240 and 2017/25/B/ST9/00740. Based on observations obtained at the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope, which is a joint project of the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovações (MCTI/LNA) do Brasil, the US National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and Michigan State University (MSU). The Catalina Sky Survey is funded by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, under grant 80NSSC18K1130. The Joan Oró Telescope (TJO) of the Montsec Observatory (OdM) is owned by the Catalan Government and operated by the Institute for Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC). MD acknowledges funding from NASA NEOO grant 80NSSC21K0045 in support of the Second Lunation NEO Follow-up. These results made use of the Lowell Discovery Telescope (LDT) at Lowell Observatory. Lowell is a private, non-profit institution dedicated to astrophysical research and public appreciation of astronomy and operates the LDT in partnership with Boston University, the University of Maryland, the University of Toledo, Northern Arizona University, and Yale University. The Large Monolithic Imager (LMI) was built by Lowell Observatory using funds provided by the National Science Foundation (AST-1005313). Operation of the Pan-STARRS telescope is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant No. 80NSSC18K0971 issued through the SSO Near-Earth Object Observations Program. This project used public archival data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) as distributed by the Astro Data Archive at NSF’s NOIRLab. Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the DOE and NSF (USA), MISE (Spain), STFC (UK), HEFCE (UK), NCSA (UIUC), KICP (U. Chicago), CCAPP (Ohio State), MIFPA (Texas A&M), CNPQ, FAPERJ, FINEP (Brazil), MINECO (Spain), DFG (Germany), and the collaborating institutions in the Dark Energy Survey, which are Argonne Lab, UC Santa Cruz, University of Cambridge, CIEMAT-Madrid, University of Chicago, University College London, DESBrazil Consortium, University of Edinburgh, ETH Zürich, Fermilab, University of Illinois, ICE (IEECCSIC), IFAE Barcelona, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, LMU München and the associated Excellence Cluster Universe, University of Michigan, NOIRLab, University of Nottingham, Ohio State University, OzDES Membership Consortium, University of Pennsylvania, University of Portsmouth, SLAC National Lab, Stanford University, University of Sussex, and Texas A&M University. Based on observations at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a program of NOIRLab (NOIRLab Prop. ID 2012B-0001; PI: J. Frieman), which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. This research has made use of data and/or services provided by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center.

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