Until now a tiny asteroid had secretly and silently run ahead of Earth on the planet's stroll around the Sun.
But scientists have found that for the coming hundreds of years we are certain not to only have the Moon for company on the year-long journey.
The discovery of this companion, known as Trojan 2010 TK7, which measures only about 300 yards across, makes Earth the fourth planet in the solar system that is known to share its orbit with an asteroid.
SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO
Not alone: This artist's impression by NASA shows the trojan leading the Earth, and its extreme orbit around our planet is shown in green. Earth's orbit around the sun is indicated by blue dots
It well never get closer than 50-times the distance the moon sits from the us.
Currently, it is about 50 million miles away, and should come no closer than about 18 million miles.
'These objects are difficult to find from Earth, simply because they're not very big and they're pretty faint, and they're close to the Sun as seen from Earth,' explained Christian Veillet from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and a co-author on the Nature study.
'But we can find them from space, and future satellites will likely find some more. We think that there are others which will be very close to the Earth and have motions that make them relatively easy to reach. So, they could be potential targets to go to with spacecraft,' he told BBC News.
The future: Scientists believe that astronauts could decide to land on Trojan 2010 TK7
Experts say in order to imagine its path, people should picture Earth and the asteroid travelling around a clock face, with the Sun in the middle.
Generally, the asteroid runs about two numbers ahead.
However, the asteroid sometimes ranges so far ahead that it's on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth, said Martin Connors of Canada's Athabasca University in Alberta.
He reports the discovery in today's issue of the journal Nature.
An asteroid of this type has previously only been detected only around Jupiter, Neptune and Mars.
There are few for Mars and Neptune and nearly 5,000 for Jupiter.
Spotting one in Earth's orbit is difficult from the ground because the potential locations are generally in the daytime sky, yet Connors and colleagues were able to focus a ground-based telescope in Hawaii on it in April, determining its orbit with enough precision to show it was a Trojan.
Donald K. Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office, who didn't participate in the discovery, agreed that the asteroid is a Trojan.
'Most scientists suspected Earth had them', he said, and 'I would guess there's others.'
Explore more:
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2019840/Keeping-company-newly-discovered-asteroid-leading-Earth-Sun.html#ixzz1TTXgPbcV
Nincsenek megjegyzések:
Megjegyzés küldése