Posted on 12/28/2005 3:40:34 PM PST by SunkenCiv
This small body, known as 2001 QR322, leads Neptune around its orbit in such a way as to maintain, on average, approximately equal distance from Neptune and the Sun. As such, it mimics the Trojan asteroids of Jupiter which orbit the Sun in two clouds approximately 60 degrees ahead of and behind Jupiter. The first Jovian Trojan was discovered in 1906 and approximately 1,560 such objects are known today. However, until the discovery of 2001 QR322, Trojan-like objects associated with other giant planets had not been found.
(Excerpt) Read more at lowell.edu ...
Why did I think this was a story about the sex life of some ancient aquatic god?
:') Some ancient aquatic god with his poop side down?
(not gonna make a Trojan/Uranus joke. NOT!)
I don't wanna see ya make any about Neptune's moons, either. ;')
Apollos, Atens, and Amors are the NEA families currently known, with about 500 known I think, plus another 1700+ which are still having their orbits analyzed. It is likely that one of these families of NEAs struck the Earth 65 million years ago, extinctifying (I just coined that) the dinos. Given the number of potential encounters, probably all, or nearly all, the catastrophic impacts (such as the one that formed the Ries Basin in Germany, the Haughton astrobleme in the Canadian Arctic, the Tunguska event) result from encounters with these NEAs.
Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking
http://neat.jpl.nasa.gov/
Binary Near-Earth Asteroids
http://www.asu.cas.cz/~asteroid/binneas.htm
Current Map Of The Solar System
http://szyzyg.arm.ac.uk/~spm/neo_map.html
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