Earth's Trojan asteroid

The green circle in the lower right of this image marks the position of Earth's own trojan asteroid, discovered by researcher's involved with NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer project.

What's a trojan asteroid? Glad you asked. The good news: It's not going to kill us all.

Trojans are asteroids that share an orbit with a planet near stable points in front of or behind the planet. Because they constantly lead or follow in the same orbit as the planet, they never can collide with it. In our solar system, Trojans also share orbits with Neptune, Mars and Jupiter. Two of Saturn's moons share orbits with Trojans.

Scientists had predicted Earth should have Trojans, but they have been difficult to find because they are relatively small and appear near the sun from Earth's point of view.

The team's hunt resulted in two Trojan candidates. One called 2010 TK7 was confirmed as an Earth Trojan after follow-up observations with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

The asteroid is roughly 1,000 feet (300 meters) in diameter. It has an unusual orbit that traces a complex motion near a stable point in the plane of Earth's orbit, although the asteroid also moves above and below the plane. The object is about 50 million miles (80 million kilometers) from Earth. The asteroid's orbit is well-defined and for at least the next 100 years, it will not come closer to Earth than 15 million miles (24 million kilometers).

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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MORE: asteroid • astronomy • doom • NASA • Science • Space

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http://twitter.com/coolbev Tom Jeffery

Trojans with Earth and what? Trojans are third bodies in gravitationally neutral points between 2 other bodies. Earth-Moon trojans? Earth-sun?
- Sethum
  
  Trojan with earth and sun.
  
  see http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point
Ben Abramovitz

It is like the earth has a twin that died in in the womb I always suspected we had a twin
Benoit Galarneau

Lars Von Trier coming movie Melancholia uses a similar heavenly body to justify the end of the world. In this case, it has been hiding on the other side of the moon and thus, was never spotted before. Could that happen?
- http://www.lightning-rose.com/ LightningRose
  
  No.
dculberson

Maybe we can mine it for resources!
http://profiles.google.com/walter.guyll Walter Guyll

It won’t be there forever. We’ll eventually mine it or move it to some place more useful, perhaps for a counterweight to a space elevator.
show me

Is this at a Lagrange point? If so, which one?
- Xof
  
  Earth-Sun L4 or L5, depending on whether the asteroid is leading or trailing Earth.
http://www.facebook.com/evan.rappaport Evan Rappaport

This would mean that the Earth is now a dwarf planet because it “has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit”.
- Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  Heh. Still bitter about Pluto, Evan?
- Xof
  
  We’d be in good company; if having Trojan asteroids means being a dwarf planet, Jupiter is a dwarf planet.
http://twitter.com/mnsmirnoff Manuel Smirnoff

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_collision

Obviously it’s just an illusion. :-)
awjt

At least it’s a Trojan, and we’re protected.
- extra88
  
  Indeed, time to give Venus a call.
mypalmike

How can you look at Earth’s trojan twin and not realize there’s a God?
- travtastic
  
  With a telescope!
- http://www.lightning-rose.com/ LightningRose
  
  Because there are no gods.
jimkirk

Use as base for more permanent STEREO satellites?