Neptune Trojan facts for kids
A Neptune Trojan is a special type of asteroid. These asteroids share the exact same orbit as the planet Neptune. They are named after the Trojan asteroids found near Jupiter. These Jupiter Trojans also share Jupiter's orbit.
Neptune Trojans are small space rocks. They travel around the Sun on the same path as Neptune. Imagine Neptune as a big car on a racetrack. These Trojans are like smaller cars that stay exactly 60 degrees ahead of Neptune. This special spot is called a Lagrangian point. It's a place where the gravity of the Sun and Neptune balance out. This balance keeps the Trojans stable in their orbit.
As of March 2007, scientists knew about six Neptune Trojans. They all stay in a stretched-out, curved area. This area is around the L4 Lagrangian point. This point is 60 degrees ahead of Neptune in its orbit.
The six known Neptune Trojans are:
Discoveries and What They Mean
The discovery of 2005 TN53 was very important. This Trojan asteroid travels in a highly tilted orbit. Its orbit is tilted more than 25 degrees compared to Neptune's orbit. This tilted orbit suggests that there might be a "thick cloud" of Neptune Trojans. This means there could be many more of these asteroids than we thought.
Scientists believe that large Neptune Trojans might be very common. These large ones could be about 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) wide. It's thought that there might be even more large Neptune Trojans than there are large Jupiter Trojans.
New Horizons Spacecraft
The New Horizons spacecraft flew past the L5 Neptune region in 2014. This L5 point is another stable spot, 60 degrees behind Neptune. The spacecraft was getting ready to observe Pluto at the time. It did not see any asteroids in that region.
Images for kids
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An animation showing the path of six of Neptune's L4 trojans. Neptune stays still in this view. (Click to view.)
See also
In Spanish: Asteroide troyano de Neptuno para niños
