Orbital stability analysis and photometric characterization of the second Earth Trojan asteroid 2020 XL5
T. Santana-Ros, M. Micheli, Laura Faggioli, Ramona Cennamo, Maxime Devogèle, A. Álvarez-Candal, Dagmara Oszkiewicz, Oliver Mauricio Esguerra Ramírez, P.-Y. Liu, Paula Gabriela Benavídez, Adriano Campo Bagatín, E. Christensen, R. J. Wainscoat, R. Weryk, L. Fraga, César Briceño, L. Conversi
Abstract
Abstract Trojan asteroids are small bodies orbiting around the L 4 or L 5 Lagrangian points of a Sun-planet system. Due to their peculiar orbits, they provide key constraints to the Solar System evolution models. Despite numerous dedicated observational efforts in the last decade, asteroid 2010 TK 7 has been the only known Earth Trojan thus far. Here we confirm that the recently discovered 2020 XL 5 is the second transient Earth Trojan known. To study its orbit, we used archival data from 2012 to 2019 and observed the object in 2021 from three ground-based observatories. Our study of its orbital stability shows that 2020 XL 5 will remain in L 4 for at least 4 000 years. With a photometric analysis we estimate its absolute magnitude to be $${H}_{r}=18.5{8}_{-0.15}^{+0.16}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>H</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>r</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:mn>18.5</mml:mn> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>8</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>−</mml:mo> <mml:mn>0.15</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>+</mml:mo> <mml:mn>0.16</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> , and color indices suggestive of a C-complex taxonomy. Assuming an albedo of 0.06 ± 0.03, we obtain a diameter of 1.18 ± 0.08 km, larger than the first known Earth Trojan asteroid.