Saturn’s First Trojan Asteroid
Saturn’s First Trojan Asteroid https://asteroidday-uploads.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/19085317/Capture-decran-2024-11-19-a-08.53.12.png 806 510 Asteroid Day https://asteroidday-uploads.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/19085317/Capture-decran-2024-11-19-a-08.53.12.png
All the giant planets in the solar system now have at least one Trojan asteroid – for the time being.
Scientists have discovered Saturn’s first Trojan asteroid, 2019 UO14, which may have been captured from neighbouring planets. This asteroid, approximately 15 km in diameter, has an unstable orbit and is expected to be lost by Saturn in around 1,000 years.
Trojan asteroids are bodies that share a planet’s orbit around the Sun, gravitationally anchored at specific points known as Lagrange points. While Jupiter is home to the largest number of Trojan asteroids, Saturn and Mercury were previously thought to have none. It is believed that 2019 UO14 originated in the Kuiper Belt, having been captured after “bouncing” between Neptune and Uranus. The first signs of the asteroid’s orbit around Saturn were detected in 2019, confirming its existence.
This discovery marks a significant milestone in our understanding of the solar system, revealing more about the dynamic and often unpredictable paths that asteroids can take. The capture of Trojan asteroids is an intriguing phenomenon, with potential insights into the early solar system’s formation and the interactions between distant planetary bodies.
Selected images of asteroid 2019 UO14 (Man-To Hui et al, / Arxiv.org)
See also:
2019 UO14: A Transient Trojan of Saturn (Man-To Hui, Paul A. Wiegert et al.)
