Venus trojan
Asteroid with which Venus shares its orbit around the Sun
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Venus trojan is an asteroid that orbits the Sun in the vicinity of Venus. Trojans travel in Venus-Sun Lagrangian points L4, leading 60°, or L5, trailing 60°.[1] 2013 ND15 is the only known trojan of Venus, and is located near Venus's Lagrangian point L4. While 524522 Zoozve is currently a quasi-satellite of Venus, it is expected to be ejected from that configuration and become a Venus trojan orbiting at Venus' L5 point in about 500 years.[2]
Sun · Venus · 2013 ND15
Exploration
The only known temporary trojan of Venus is 2013 ND15. It orbits Venus in a tadpole orbit around Venus's Lagrangian point L4. The asteroid was discovered in July 2013 by N. Primak, A. Schultz, T. Goggia and K. Chambers, observing for the Pan-STARRS project.[3]
As of September 2014, the asteroid had been observed 21 times over a data-arc span of 26 days. It is classified as an Aten asteroid, and its semi-major axis is 0.7235 astronomical units (AU) closely matches that of Venus. However, it has a high eccentricity of 0.6115 and a low orbital inclination of 4.794°. With an absolute magnitude of 24.1, its estimated diameter ranges between 40 and 100 meters, based on an assumed albedo range of 0.04 to 0.20.
In addition to being a Venus co-orbital, the asteroid is also a Mercury-crosser and Earth-crosser. 2013 ND15 shows resonant or near-resonant orbital behavior with Mercury, Venus, and Earth. Its short-term orbital behavior differs from the other three known Venus co-orbitals: (322756) 2001 CK32, 524522 Zoozve, and 2012 XE133.[4]
According to a Minor Planet Center list, it does not list 2013 ND15 as a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA), as it has only passed 0.077 AU from Earth on 21 June 2016.