* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Asteroid 2010 TK7

Blobrana · L

Trojan asteroid dances ahead of the Earth as it orbits of the sun

Astronomers have spotted a huge lump of rock that hurtles through space ahead of the Earth in its orbit around the sun.
The rock, which is 300 metres across, is known as a "Trojan asteroid" because it shares Earth's orbit but remains far enough away it will never collide with the planet.
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Blobrana · L

Earth's Trojan asteroid

It was realised in 1772 that small bodies can stably share the same orbit as a planet if they remain near 'triangular points' 60° ahead of or behind it in the orbit. Such 'Trojan asteroids' have been found co-orbiting with Jupiter, Mars and Neptune. They have not hitherto been found associated with Earth, where the viewing geometry poses difficulties for their detection, although other kinds of co-orbital asteroid (horseshoe orbiters and quasi-satellites) have been observed. Here we report an archival search of infrared data for possible Earth Trojans, producing the candidate 2010 TK7. We subsequently made optical observations which established that 2010 TK7 is a Trojan companion of Earth, librating around the leading Lagrange triangular point, L4. Its orbit is stable over at least ten thousand years.
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Blobrana · L

Orbital elements:
2010 TK7                                                 Earth MOID = 0.0837 AU
Epoch 2010 July 23.0 TT = JDT 2455400.5                 MPC
M 182.73783              (2000.0)            P               Q
n   0.98687906     Peri.   45.90750     -0.74739442     -0.56399001
a   0.9991410      Node    96.60268     +0.46229630     -0.82109166
e   0.1887139      Incl.   20.70213     +0.47716215     -0.08788490
P   1.00           H   20.7           G   0.15           U   9

MPEC 2010 - T45