Jupiter trojans are asteroids that share the planet Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each Trojan librates around one of Jupiter’s stable Lagrange points: L4, lying 60° ahead of the planet in its orbit, or L5, 60° behind. The first Jupiter trojan discovered, 588 Achilles, was spotted in 1906 by German astronomer Max Wolf. Estimates of the total Jupiter troJans range from 1 million to 7,000, depending on the method used to calculate their orbits.
About Jupiter trojan in brief
Jupiter trojans are asteroids that share the planet Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each Trojan librates around one of Jupiter’s stable Lagrange points: L4, lying 60° ahead of the planet in its orbit, or L5, 60° behind. The first Jupiter trojan discovered, 588 Achilles, was spotted in 1906 by German astronomer Max Wolf. By convention, they are each named from Greek mythology after a figure of the Trojan War, hence the name \”Trojan\”. The total number of Jupiter trojan larger than 1 km in diameter is believed to be about 1 million, approximately equal to the number of asteroids in the asteroid belt. It is thought that they are coated in tholins, organic polymers formed by the Sun’s radiation. As of October 2018, there are 4,601 known Jupiter Trojans at L4 and 2,439 at L5’s L4 node and 6,2424 Patroclus and 617 Hektor. Estimates of the total Jupiter troJans range from 1 million to 7,000, depending on the method used to calculate their orbits. They are thought to have been captured into their orbits during the early stages of the Solar System’s formation or slightly later, during the migration of giant planets. No firm evidence of the presence of water, or any other specific compound on their surface has been obtained, but it is thought they have a thick coating of tholin polymers on their surfaces.
They vary in densities from 0. 8 to 2. 5 g·cm−3, with the densities between 0.8 and 2.5 g·cm+3 at the leading and trailing points of their orbits, and 0.4 to 0.5 g cm+2 at the trailing points. The term ‘Trojan Asteroid’ is normally understood to specifically mean the Jupiter tro jans. But the general term ‘trojan’ is sometimes more generally applied to other small Solar System bodies with similar relationships to larger bodies, such as Mars and Neptune. There are also a number of recently discovered Earth trojan asteroids, as well as a more recently discovered Mars trojan asteroid, and a Neptune trojan. The asteroids are named after Greek heroes of Troy, and those in the trailing orbit after the Greek spy in the Trojan node in Jupiter’s Jupiter node. They were named before the rule was devised, resulting in a Trojan spy node in the Greek Trojan War. Those associated with Jupiter were the first to be discovered, with Achilles being the first asteroid known to reside at the L5 Lagrangian point. By 1938, 11 Jupitertrojans had been detected. This number increased to 14 only in 1961. As instruments improved, the rate of discovery grew rapidly: by January 2000, a total of 257 had been discovered. By May 2003, the number had grown to 1, and by October 2000, there were 257 of them.
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This page is based on the article Jupiter trojan published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
