Searching for Earth's Trojan Asteroids

  • Released Thursday, February 9, 2017
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Trojan asteroids accompany several of our solar system's planets, leading or trailing the planet in its orbit at the L4 and L5 Lagrange points. Detecting our own planet's Trojan asteroids from Earth is difficult because they appear close to the sun from our perspective. In mid-February 2017, NASA's OSIRS-REx mission will search for these elusive objects when the spacecraft passes by Earth's L4 Lagrange point, en route to asteroid Bennu in 2018.

Learn more about OSIRIS-REx's search for Earth Trojans.
Visit OSIRIS-REx at NASA and the University of Arizona.

In mid-February 2017, NASA's OSIRS-REx mission will search Earth's L4 Lagrange point for Trojan asteroids - small bodies that share Earth's orbit, and which may have been trapped there during the formation of our planet. Jim Green, the Director of Planetary Science at NASA, discusses OSIRIS-REx and its search for Earth's Trojan asteroids.

Complete transcript available.

Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.

Music: "Meadows" by Daniel Pemberton, Atmosphere Music Ltd/Killer Tracks Music

Diagram of the OSIRIS-REx search for Trojan asteroids at L4, oblique perspective.

Diagram of the OSIRIS-REx search for Trojan asteroids at L4, oblique perspective.

Diagram of the five Lagrange points around Earth and its orbit.

Diagram of the five Lagrange points around Earth and its orbit.

Diagram of Earth's orbit and L4, where OSIRIS-REx will search for Trojan asteroids.

Diagram of Earth's orbit and L4, where OSIRIS-REx will search for Trojan asteroids.

Infographic explaining Trojan asteroids

Infographic explaining Trojan asteroids

For More Information

See NASA.gov

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Thursday, February 9, 2017.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:47 PM EDT.

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