The Trojan asteroids are those asteroids that share a common orbit with a planet in the solar system.
Earth Trojan Asteroid
These rocks circle the same star as that of the planet in the same path. So far only one Trojan asteroid was known to revolve in earth’s orbit. It was called 2010 TK7.
Recently astronomers have found another Trojan asteroid revolving in the earth’s orbit. It has been named 2020 XL5. With this discovery, the astronomers have concluded that there are lot more earth Trojan asteroids.
The 2020 XL5 earth Trojan asteroid was spotted using the Pan – STARRS 1 survey telescope located in Hawaii.
The asteroid has been added to the Minor Planet Centre database of International Astronomical Union.
The asteroid orbits L4. L4 is the fourth Earth – sun Lagrange point. Lagrange point is gravitationally balanced region around the sun and the star.
