Earth’s Trojan asteroid

Martin Connors (), Paul Wiegert and Christian Veillet
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Martin Connors: Athabasca University, 1 University Drive, Athabasca
Paul Wiegert: The University of Western Ontario
Christian Veillet: Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope

Nature, 2011, vol. 475, issue 7357, 481-483

Abstract: Earth's travelling companion More than 200 years ago, mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange predicted the existence of what became known as Trojan asteroids — small bodies that can stably share the orbit of a planet if they remain near 'triangular points' 60° ahead of or behind it in its orbit. Jupiter has thousands of Trojans; Mars and Neptune have some too. Now Earth is shown to have a Trojan. A search of data collected by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite revealed the asteroid 2010 TK7 as a strong candidate, and subsequent optical observations confirm its status as a Trojan companion of Earth, oscillating around the L4 (leading) Lagrange triangular point.

Date: 2011
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DOI: 10.1038/nature10233

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