Earth has an extra moon, a Trojan asteroid that will hang around for 4,000 years
, a gravitationally balanced region around our planet and star. 2010 TK7, the first-confirmed Earth Trojan asteroid is also at L4.
But at the time, 2020 XL5's orbit around the sun wasn't fully understood, so it wasn't yet certain whether the object was just a nearby space rock crossing Earth's orbit or if it could be a real Earth Trojan asteroid. "These were very challenging observations, requiring the telescope to track correctly at its lowest elevation limit, as the object was very low on the western horizon at dawn," co-author Cesar Briceño, a researcher at the National Science Foundation's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory ,Santana-Ros echoed how difficult it is to make these observations from Earth.
"SOAR’s data allowed us to make a first photometric analysis of the object, revealing that 2020 XL5 is likely a C-type asteroid," Santana-Ros said in the same statement. The study also revealed that this object is much larger than the first Earth Trojan asteroid found. 2020 XL5 measures about 0.73 miles across, almost three times longer than 2010 TK7 which stretches just about 0.25 miles wide.
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