Astrophysics > Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
[Submitted on 9 Nov 2021 (v1), last revised 10 Nov 2021 (this version, v2)]
Title:The Second Earth Trojan 2020 XL$_{5}$
View PDFAbstract:The Earth Trojans are co-orbitals librating around the Lagrange points $L_4$ or $L_5$ of the Sun-Earth system. Although many numerical studies suggest that they can maintain their dynamical status and be stable on timescales up to a few tens of thousands of years or even longer, they remain an elusive population. Thus far only one transient member (2010 TK$_7$) has been discovered serendipitously. Here, we present a dynamical study of asteroid 2020 XL$_5$. With our meticulous followup astrometric observations of the object, we confirmed that it is a new Earth Trojan. However, its eccentric orbit brings it close encounters with Venus on a frequent basis. Based on our N-body integration, we found that the asteroid was captured into the current Earth Trojan status in the 15th century, and then it has a likelihood of 99.5% to leave the $L_4$ region within the next $\sim$10 kyr. Therefore, it is most likely that 2020 XL$_5$ is dynamically unstable over this timescale.
Submission history
From: Man-To Hui [view email][v1] Tue, 9 Nov 2021 11:28:41 UTC (7,161 KB)
[v2] Wed, 10 Nov 2021 10:35:57 UTC (7,161 KB)
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