Now a Trojan asteroid named ‘2020 XL5’ has also joined this group. The length of the 2020 XL5 asteroid is about 1.2 km. It is almost three times longer than the 2010 TK7. Scientists are sure that this Trojan asteroid will remain in this orbit for at least 3500 years and will continue to revolve around the Sun along with the Earth.
The 2020 XL5 asteroid was first seen in December 2020. Then astronomers saw it with the help of the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii. After that this asteroid was added to the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center database.
Study lead author Tony Santana-Ros told Space.com that the discovery of 2020 XL5 as a Trojan asteroid confirmed that the ‘2010 TK7’ asteroid was no exception. This discovery has prompted astronomers to search for more Trojan asteroids.
After observing the ‘2020 XL5’ asteroid, astronomer Tony Dunn calculated the object’s trajectory using NASA’s JPL-Horizon software. This showed that the object orbits the Earth-Sun’s fourth Lagrange point, or L4. Which is a gravitationally balanced area around our planet and the Sun. The special thing is that the Trojan asteroid ‘2010 TK7’ is also on this L4.
These observations were very challenging, said researcher and co-author Cesar Brissano of the National Science Foundation’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab). For this the telescope needs to be tracked properly. After this, using equipment from many countries, scientists detected this Trojan asteroid.
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