Earth Shares Orbit with 'Trojan' Asteroid

Astronomers had long suspected that we shared our path around the sun with an asteroid, and sure enough, we do.

A Canadian astronomer has discovered an asteroid that follows Earth's orbit around the sun, confirming for the first time the presence of a so-called “Trojan” asteroid around our planet. Martin Connors of Athabasca University used NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, telescope, to track down the 300-metre wide asteroid known by the name 2010 TK7, which traces the planet's orbit from some 80 million kilometres in front of us. Jupiter, Neptune, and Mars all have Trojan asteroids as well, and it had long been suspected that Earth did, too, but 2010 TK7's distance from Earth made it difficult to find it. And best of all, there's next to no chance that we'll collide with 2010 TK7 any time soon (otherwise we'd have to go all Armageddon on our newfound companion).