Astronomers Find Newly Discovered Asteroid is Earth's Companion

Asteroid 2010 SO16 and the Earth follow similar orbits around
the Sun. But as seen from Earth, 2010 SO16 gradually traces
out a horseshoe shape in space, taking 175 years to go from
one end of the horseshoe to the other. In this schematic
animation covering 100 years around the present, with the
Sun [S] at the centre, the asteroid [diamond] approaches
Earth [E] and then recedes from it.

Click here to display with the scale in Astronomical Units
Click here to display over a longer time, 1000 years around the present

Astronomers from the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland have found that a recently discovered asteroid has been following the Earth in its motion around the Sun for at least the past 250,000 years, and may be intimately related to the origin of our planet. Their work appears in a paper in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The asteroid first caught the eye of the scientists, Apostolos "Tolis" Christou and David Asher, two months after it was found by the WISE infrared survey satellite, launched in 2009 by the United States. "Its average distance from the Sun is identical to that of the Earth", says Dr Christou, "but what really impressed me at the time was how Earth-like its orbit was". Most near-Earth Asteroids тАФ NEAs for short тАФ have very eccentric, or egg-shaped, orbits that take the asteroid right through the inner solar system. But the new object, designated 2010 SO16, is different. Its orbit is almost circular so that it cannot come close to any other planet in the solar system except possibly the Earth.

The researchers set out to investigate how stable this orbit is and how long the asteroid has occupied it. To do that, they first had to take into account the current uncertainty in the asteroid's orbit. "Not knowing precisely the location of a newly-discovered NEA is quite common", explained Dr Asher. "The only way to eliminate the uncertainty is to keep tracking the asteroid for as long as possible, usually months or years". But the two scientists overcame that problem by creating virtual "clones" of the asteroid for every possible orbit that it could conceivably occupy. They then simulated the evolution of these clones under the gravity of the Sun and the planets for two million years into the past and in the future.

They found that all the clones remained in a so-called "horseshoe" state with respect to the Earth. In this configuration, an object mimics very closely the orbital motion of our planet around the Sun, but as seen from Earth it appears to slowly trace out a horseshoe shape in space. Asteroid 2010 SO16 takes 175 years to make the trip from one end of the horseshoe to the other. So while on the one hand its orbit is remarkably similar to Earth's, in fact "this asteroid is terraphobic", explains Tolis. "It keeps well away from the Earth. So well, in fact, that it has likely been in this orbit for several hundred thousand years, never coming closer to our planet than 50 times the distance to the Moon". This is where it is now, near the end of the horseshoe trailing the Earth.

Currently, three other horseshoe companions of the Earth are known to exist but, unlike 2010 SO16, these linger for a few thousand years at most before moving on to different orbits. Also, with an estimated diameter of 200тАУ400 metres, 2010 SO16 is by far the largest of Earth's horseshoe asteroids. The team has already used the Las Cumbres Observatory's Faulkes Telescope in an on-going campaign to track the object and refine its orbit further. "It is not that difficult to spot with a medium-sized professional telescope", says Dr Asher. "It will remain as an evening object in Earth's skies for many years to come."

Ultimately, Christou and Asher would like to know where it came from, and they have already thought of several possibilities. It could be an ordinary asteroid coming from the Main Belt between Mars and Jupiter. In that case, the random gravitational pull of the different planets would be responsible for its present orbit, something that Tolis and David think is an unlikely proposition. It could also be a piece of the Moon that escaped the gravity of the Earth-Moon system and went into an independent orbit around the Sun. However, the very stability of its orbit means that there is currently no way to transport it from the Moon to where it is now. Finally, 2010 SO16 could represent leakage from a population of objects near the so-called triangular equilibrium points 60 degrees ahead of and behind the Earth in its orbit. Such a population has been postulated in the past but never observed as such objects are always near the Sun in the sky. If they do exist, they may represent relic material from the formation of Earth, Moon and the other inner planets 4.5 billion years ago.

For the time being, the astronomers would like to see the physical properties of the object studied from the ground, especially its colour. "Colour, a measure of an asteroid's reflectivity across the electromagnetic spectrum, can tell you a lot about its origin", they explain. "With this information we can start testing possible origin scenarios with hard data. If it proves to be unique in some way, it may be worth sending a probe to study it up close, and perhaps bring back a sample for laboratory scrutiny."

See also: Research Paper

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Apostolos Christou or David Asher at the Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh, BT61 9DG. Tel.: 028-3752-2928; FAX: 028-3752-7174; aacarm.ac.uk or djaarm.ac.uk.

Images

Blink animation of the asteroid in Faulkes Telescope North images
Click on image for larger version
Image credit: the Faulkes Telescopes are operated by Las Cumbres Observatory

Acknowledgement

This publication makes use of data products from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This publication also makes use of data products from NEOWISE, which is a project of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the Planetary Science Division of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Notes for Editors

The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS, www.ras.org.uk), founded in 1820, encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. The RAS organizes scientific meetings, publishes international research and review journals, recognizes outstanding achievements by the award of medals and prizes, maintains an extensive library, supports education through grants and outreach activities, and represents UK astronomy nationally and internationally. Its more than 3500 members (Fellows), a third based overseas, include scientific researchers in universities, observatories and laboratories as well as historians of astronomy and others.

Last Revised: 2011 April 6th