2010 TK7
Asteroid 2010 TK7 (circled in green) in image from the WISE spacecraft
|
|
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | WISE spacecraft |
| Discovery site | LEO, polar orbit |
| Discovery date | 1 October 2010 |
| Designations | |
|
Earth trojan Aten (2014) Apollo (2013) |
|
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Epoch 13 January 2016 (JD 2457400.5) | |
| Uncertainty parameter 0 | |
| Observation arc | 768 days (2.10 yr) |
| Aphelion | 1.1903 AU (178.07 Gm) |
| Perihelion | 0.80918 AU (121.052 Gm) |
| 0.99972 AU (149.556 Gm) | |
| Eccentricity | 0.19059 |
| 1.00 yr (365.10 d) | |
|
Average orbital speed
|
9.1 m/s |
| 354.14° | |
| 0° 59m 9.672s /day | |
| Inclination | 20.890° |
| 96.498° | |
| 45.927° | |
| Earth MOID | 0.0837911 AU (12.53497 Gm) |
| Jupiter MOID | 3.88753 AU (581.566 Gm) |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | ~300 m |
| 20.8 (when near Earth) to 23.6 | |
| 20.8 | |
2010 TK7 is a near-Earth asteroid and the first Earth trojan discovered; it precedes Earth in its orbit around the Sun.Trojan objects are most easily conceived as orbiting at a Lagrangian point, a dynamically stable location (where gravitational and centrifugal forces balance) 60 degrees ahead of or behind a massive orbiting body, in a type of 1:1 orbital resonance. In reality, they oscillate (librate) around such a point. Such objects had previously been observed in the orbits of Mars, Jupiter, Neptune, and the Saturnian moons Tethys and Dione.
2010 TK7 has a diameter of about 300 meters (1,000 ft). Its path oscillates about the Sun–Earth L4 Lagrangian point (60 degrees ahead of Earth), shuttling between its closest approach to Earth and its closest approach to the L3 point (180 degrees from Earth) about every 400 years.
The asteroid was discovered in October 2010 by the NEOWISE team of astronomers using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).
WISE, a space telescope launched into Earth orbit in December 2009, imaged 2010 TK7 in October 2010 while carrying out a program to scan the entire sky from January 2010 to February 2011. Spotting an asteroid sharing Earth's orbit is normally difficult from the ground, because their potential locations are generally in the daytime sky. After follow-up work at the University of Hawaii and the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope, its orbit was evaluated on 21 May 2011 and the trojan character of its motion was published in July 2011. The orbital information was published in the journal Nature by Paul Wiegert of the University of Western Ontario, Martin Connors of Athabasca University and Christian Veillet, the executive director of the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope.
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