Related papers: Jupiter's Metastable Companions
Searching for the non-Trojan Jupiter co-orbitals we have numerically integrated orbits of 3\,160 asteroids and 24 comets discovered by October 2010 and situated within and close to the planet co-orbital region. Using this sample we have…
We demonstrate dynamical pathways from main-belt asteroid and Centaur orbits to those in co-orbital motion with Jupiter, including the retrograde (inclination $i>90^o$) state. We estimate that at any given time, there should be $\sim1$…
Jupiter Trojan asteroids are located around L4 and L5 Lagrangian points on relatively stable orbits, in 1:1 MMR with Jupiter. However, not all of them lie in orbits that remain stable over the age of the Solar System. Unstable zones allow…
Trojan objects share a planet's orbit, never straying far from the triangular Lagrangian points, 60 degrees ahead of (L4) or behind (L5) the planet. We report the detection of a Uranian Trojan; in our numerical integrations, 2011 QF99…
Unlike Trojans, horseshoe coorbitals are not generally considered to be long-term stable (Dermott and Murray, 1981; Murray and Dermott, 1999). As the lifetime of Earth's and Venus's horseshoe coorbitals is expected to be about a Gyr, we…
All the Trojan asteroids orbit about the Sun at roughly the same heliocentric distance as Jupiter. Differences in the observed visible reflection spectra range from neutral to red, with no ultra-red objects found so far. Given that the…
Most co-orbital objects in the Solar system are thought to follow tadpole-type orbits, behaving as Trojans. However, most of Earth's identified co-orbitals are moving along horseshoe-type orbits. The current tally of minor bodies considered…
We investigate the structure of the Earth co-orbital region at low eccentricity and low inclination using a semi-analytical model of the 1:1 mean-motion resonance. The dynamics of asteroids in co-orbital motion with the Earth is described…
In a previous paper, we have found that the resonance structure of the present Jupiter Trojan swarms could be split up into four different families of resonances. Here, in a first step, we generalize these families in order to describe the…
Co-orbital bodies (Trojans) share a 1:1 mean-motion resonance with a planet. Although Trojans are common in the Solar System, none has yet been confirmed in an exoplanetary system. Hot Jupiters are not expected to retain primordial…
The origin of the Jupiter Trojan asteroids has long been a mystery. Dynamically, the population, which is considerably smaller than the main asteroid belt, librates around Jupiter's stable L4 and L5 Lagrange points, 60 deg ahead and behind…
We find an interesting fact that fictitious retrograde co-orbitals of Saturn, or small bodies inside the retrograde 1:1 resonance with Saturn, are highly unstable in our numerical simulations. It is shown that in the presence of Jupiter,…
Asteroid pairs, two objects that are not gravitationally bound to one another, but share a common origin, have been discovered in the Main belt and Hungaria populations. Such pairs are of major interest, as the study of their evolution…
Co-orbital systems contain two or more bodies sharing the same orbit around a planet or star. The best-known flavors of co-orbital systems are tadpoles (in which two bodies' angular separations oscillate about the L4/L5 Lagrange points…
We present an analysis of lifetimes and resonances of Earth Trojan Asteroids (ETAs) in the MEGASIM data set (Yeager & Golovich 2022). Trojan asteroids co-orbit the Sun with a planet but remain bound to the Lagrange points, L4 (60{\deg}…
Due to their strong resonances with their host planet, Trojan asteroids can remain in stable orbits for billions of years. As a result, they are powerful probes for constraining the dynamical and chemical history of the solar system.…
Uranus has three known co-orbitals: 83982 Crantor (2002 GO9), 2010 EU65 and 2011 QF99. Here, we perform a comparative analysis of the orbital evolution of these transient co-orbitals to understand better how they got captured in the first…
We report on the discovery of new Martian Trojans within the Minor Planet Center list of asteroids. Their orbital evolution over 10^8 yr shows characteristic signatures of dynamical longevity (Scholl et al, 2005) while their average orbits…
A co-orbital asteroid shares the orbit of a secondary body about its primary. Though more commonly encountered as an asteroid that shares a planet's orbit around the Sun, a co-orbital asteroid could similarly share the orbit of the Moon…
Of the four giant planets in the Solar system, only Jupiter and Neptune are currently known to possess swarms of Trojan asteroids - small objects that experience a 1:1 mean motion resonance with their host planet. In Lykawka et al. (2009),…