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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ Uranus and Neptune _ Uranus's co-orbital Centaurs

Posted by: MarcF Jun 20 2013, 03:28 PM

Researchers have demonstrated for the first time that Crantor and a further two Centaurs are co-orbital with Uranus :
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130618101606.htm

"From the point of view of an observer rotating along with Uranus, both Crantor and 2010 EU65 have "horseshoe" orbits, since they acquire this form as they move towards and away from the planet. In fact, these two centaurs periodically have close encounters with Uranus.

However, 2011 QF99 maintains a more stable, Trojan or "tadpole" orbit, which means that it moves 60 degrees in front of Uranus. This asteroid always maintains a relatively large distance from the planet.

The scientists calculate that the orbits of these three objects associated with Uranus could remain stable for a few million years. In astronomical terms this is not very long. With the Data Processing Centre's simulations, the same team has identified three new Mars Trojan asteroids with stable orbits of up to 10,000 million years."

Cheers,
Marc.

Posted by: TheAnt Sep 5 2013, 09:09 AM

More on 2011 QF99 the first Trojan object found here.

http://science.ubc.ca/news/724

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