# Jupiter trojan <!-- SOLSIM:BEGIN g31 — Solar System explorer state (hand-built on wt-core, specs/solar/); do not hand-edit inside --> **Microsim — three.js (Wikitube framework):** *The Jupiter trojans in the Solar System explorer* <div class="wt-sim" data-src="https://wikitube-3d-microsims.netlify.app/solar/Solar_System.html?obj=trojans&embed=1" data-title="The Jupiter trojans in the Solar System explorer"></div> *The Solar System explorer locked on this article's state (`?obj=trojans`); every object and population of the [[PORTAL_Solar_System|Solar System portal]] has its own state in the same scene.* <!-- SOLSIM:END --> *Try: set the speed to 1 year/s and watch both swarms keep pace with Jupiter, one cloud 60° ahead of the planet and one 60° behind it; press l to turn on labels and find 624 Hektor, the one real orbit in the scene, in the leading swarm; then set show to small bodies to hide the planets and compare the two swarms with the main belt far inside them.* The **Jupiter trojans** are asteroids that travel around the [[Sun]] in [[Jupiter]]'s own [[Orbit|orbit]], gathered in two swarms centred on the planet's L4 and L5 Lagrange points, 60° ahead of it and 60° behind it. Each body swings slowly about its point rather than sitting on it, and the two swarms are long, curved clouds at a mean distance of about 5.2 [[Astronomical_unit|AU]].[^yoshida2005] The leading swarm is called the Greek camp and the trailing swarm the Trojan camp, after the two sides of the Trojan War whose heroes supply their names.[^nicholson1961] Max Wolf found the first accepted member, 588 Achilles, in 1906.[^nicholson1961] The Minor Planet Center's list held 9,738 objects in the L4 swarm and 5,931 in L5 in February 2026, and extrapolations from deep surveys put the number larger than 1 km at around a million, comparable with the [[Asteroid_belt|asteroid belt]], although later work suggests that figure may be several times too high.[^mpc-jt][^yoshida2005][^tedesco2002][^nakamura2008] The trojans are dark, reddish and spectrally featureless, probably coated in organic material; measured densities run between 0.8 and 2.5 g/cm³.[^dotto2006][^jewitt2004] Whether they formed near Jupiter or were captured from farther out during the migration of the giant planets is still debated, and NASA's Lucy spacecraft, launched in 2021, is the first mission sent to visit them.[^marzari2002][^morbidelli2005][^nasa-lucy] "Trojan" is also used for any small body sharing a larger body's orbit near a Lagrange point; trojans of [[Mars]], [[Earth]], [[Uranus]] and [[Neptune]] are known, but Jupiter's are by far the most numerous and were the first found.[^sheppard2006][^connors2011][^mpc-trojans] The explorer at the top of this page shows the two swarms riding along with Jupiter; their points are ILLUSTRATIVE, drawn to show where the swarms lie, while 624 Hektor follows its real catalogued orbit. ## Observational history The theory came first. In 1772 Joseph-Louis Lagrange, working on the restricted three-body problem, showed that a small body sharing a planet's orbit could remain near either of two points that form equilateral triangles with the planet and the [[Sun]], one leading the planet by 60° and one trailing it.[^nicholson1961] These are now labelled L4 and L5.[^jewitt2000] A body trapped there does not stay fixed but drifts back and forth around the point on a slow loop.[^marzari2002] The points exist for any planet on a near-circular orbit because the [[Newton's_law_of_universal_gravitation|gravitational]] pulls of the Sun and the planet, together with the motion of the pair, balance there in a frame that rotates with the planet.[^openstax] More than a century passed before anything was seen there. Edward Emerson Barnard recorded a faint object in 1904 that he took to be [[Saturn]]'s newly found moon Phoebe, two arcminutes away at the time, or else an ordinary [[Asteroid|asteroid]]; only when its orbit was worked out in 1999 was it recognised as the trojan now numbered 12126 Chersidamas.[^marsden1999] The first discovery understood as such came in February 1906, when Max Wolf at Heidelberg found 588 Achilles near the L4 point of the Sun–[[Jupiter]] system.[^nicholson1961] August Kopff added 624 Hektor and 617 Patroclus in 1906–1907; Hektor joined Achilles in the leading swarm, while Patroclus was the first body known at L5.[^nicholson1961][^einarsson1913] Discovery was slow while searches depended on photographic plates. Eleven trojans were known by 1938 and only fourteen by 1961.[^wyse1938][^nicholson1961] Electronic detectors and wide-field surveys changed the pace: 257 were catalogued by January 2000 and about 1,600 by May 2003.[^jewitt2000][^fernandez2003] By February 2026 the Minor Planet Center's list had grown to 15,669 (derived), with the leading camp outnumbering the trailing one by roughly five to three.[^mpc-jt] ## Nomenclature The practice of naming these bodies after figures of the Trojan War goes back to Johann Palisa of Vienna, who computed the first accurate orbits for them.[^nicholson1961] A division by camp followed: objects at L4 take the names of Greek heroes, and objects at L5 the names of defenders of Troy, which is why the leading swarm is also called the Achilles group.[^nicholson1961] Two early names broke the rule before it was settled. Patroclus, a Greek, orbits among the Trojans at L5, and Hektor, the Trojan prince, orbits with the Greeks at L4, so each camp holds a single "spy".[^wyse1938][^cosmos-trojans] The supply of heroes could not keep up with discovery. In response to a catalogue that now far outruns the named warriors, the International Astronomical Union amended the convention at its 30th General Assembly in Vienna in 2018: trojans fainter than absolute magnitude 12, which for an assumed albedo of 0.057 means bodies smaller than about 22 km across, may now be named after Olympic and Paralympic athletes.[^mpec2020] By May 2026, 38 trojans carried athletes' names, among them 17415 Czesławlang for the Polish cyclist Czesław Lang, 57915 Mahuchikh for the Ukrainian high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh and 117385 Maughan for Margaret Maughan, who won Britain's first Paralympic gold medal in 1960; the Minor Planet Center and the IAU's Working Group Small Bodies Nomenclature publish the citations.[^mpc-jt][^wgsbn] The athletes' names follow the same camp logic as the heroes: each is assigned to the Greek or the Trojan camp according to the swarm in which the asteroid actually moves. The camps are therefore a statement about dynamics, not about the person honoured. ## Numbers and mass No survey has covered the whole of either swarm to a faint limit, so [[Asteroid|asteroid]] population estimates extrapolate from deep images of small patches of sky. Yoshida and Nakamura, and Jewitt and colleagues before them, put the L4 swarm at 160,000–240,000 bodies wider than 2 km and roughly 600,000 wider than 1 km.[^yoshida2005][^jewitt2000] If L5 holds a similar number, the two swarms together contain more than a million kilometre-sized bodies, about as many as the main [[Asteroid_belt|asteroid belt]].[^yoshida2005][^tedesco2002] The inventory was considered complete by 2003 for trojans brighter than absolute magnitude 9.0.[^fernandez2003] Jewitt, Trujillo and Luu estimated the combined mass at about 10⁻⁴ of [[Earth]]'s, or a fifth of the asteroid belt's; with Earth's mass of 5.97 × 10²⁴ kg that is some 6 × 10²⁰ kg (derived).[^jewitt2000][^nasa-fs] Those figures rest on two assumptions that later studies questioned. Converting brightness to size requires an albedo, and the early work used about 0.04 for all trojans, whereas small trojans measured by Fernández, Jewitt and Ziffer reflect on average about 0.12 of the light, which makes them smaller than assumed.[^fernandez2009] Nakamura and Yoshida also revised the way the swarms spread across the sky. Their model gives 6,300 ± 1,000 trojans larger than 2 km at L4 and 3,400 ± 500 at L5, and the numbers would fall by a further half if small trojans are brighter than large ones.[^nakamura2008][^fernandez2009] More trojans are known at L4 than at L5. Because the largest and brightest members are split nearly evenly between the camps, the excess among faint objects is probably an artefact of where and when surveys have looked, although some dynamical models find L4 slightly more stable.[^jewitt2004][^marzari2002] The size distribution is unlike the main belt's at the large end. The biggest trojan, 624 Hektor, has a mean diameter of about 203 km, and there are few other large members; the count then climbs steeply towards a diameter of 84 km, equivalent to absolute magnitude 9.5 at an albedo of 0.04.[^fernandez2003][^marzari2002] Between about 4.4 and 40 km the distribution resembles that of the main belt, and the shape as a whole is consistent with small trojans being fragments of collisions among larger ones.[^marzari2002][^jewitt2004] ## Orbits The semi-major axes of the trojans fall between 5.05 and 5.35 AU, averaging 5.2 ± 0.15 AU, the same as [[Jupiter]]'s.[^yoshida2005] Each swarm stretches about 26° along the orbit, an arc of some 2.4 AU at that distance (derived), and has a width of roughly two [[Hill_sphere|Hill radii]] of Jupiter, about 0.6 AU.[^jewitt2000][^marzari2002] The clouds are thick as well as long: many members are inclined by up to 40° to Jupiter's orbital plane.[^jewitt2000] A trojan's distance from Jupiter is not constant. Seen from a frame that turns with the planet, each body [[Oscillation|oscillates]] along a closed, elongated loop around its Lagrange point, approaching Jupiter and then falling back; the shape gives these loops the name tadpole orbits.[^marzari2002] The typical libration takes about 150 years, roughly 12.6 of Jupiter's 11.86-year orbits (derived), and its amplitude along the orbit ranges from 0.6° to 88°, with a mean near 33°.[^jewitt2000][^marzari2002][^nasa-fs] Numerical models also allow horseshoe orbits, which carry a body around both points and past the far side of the orbit from Jupiter; no Jupiter trojan is known on such a path.[^marzari2002] The explorer shows the swarms at their mean positions, 60° either side of Jupiter, and carries them around the Sun with the planet. Its sampled points are ILLUSTRATIVE: they do not trace individual libration loops, and the true inclinations of the swarm members are not modelled point by point. ### Dynamical families and binaries Collisional families are harder to pick out here than in the [[Asteroid_belt|main belt]]. The trojans occupy a narrow range of orbital elements, so a cluster born in a collision soon overlaps with the rest of its swarm. About a dozen families had been identified by 2003, all small; the largest, the Menelaus group, has only eight members.[^jewitt2004] 617 Patroclus became the first trojan known to be a binary in 2001.[^merline2001] Its two components are separated by about 650 km, tiny compared with the 35,000 km radius of the primary's [[Hill_sphere|Hill sphere]].[^marchis2006] Hektor, the largest trojan, appears to be a contact binary, two lobes resting against each other, and a small moon was reported orbiting it in 2006.[^iauc8732][^lacerda2007] ## Physical properties Trojans are dark and irregular in shape, like most small [[Asteroid|asteroids]]. Their geometric albedos lie mostly between 3% and 10%; bodies larger than 57 km average 0.056 ± 0.003, while those smaller than 25 km average 0.121 ± 0.003 in the R band.[^fernandez2003][^jewitt2004][^fernandez2009] The brightest known, 4709 Ennomos, reaches 0.18.[^fernandez2003] Beyond albedo and size, little is established about their masses, composition or spin.[^jewitt2004] ### Rotation Light curves of 72 trojans analysed by Barucci and colleagues gave an average rotation period of about 11.2 hours, close to the 10.6 hours of a comparison sample of main-belt asteroids.[^barucci2002] The trojans' periods follow a [[Maxwell–Boltzmann_distribution|Maxwellian distribution]], whereas main-belt periods do not, showing a shortage between 8 and 10 hours; a Maxwellian spread is what a population heavily reshaped by collisions would be expected to show.[^barucci2002] A debiased sample of ten trojans studied at Calvin College in 2008 gave a median period of 18.9 hours, against 11.5 hours for main-belt bodies of similar size. A rubble body spins more slowly before it flies apart if it is less dense, so the longer periods are consistent with lower densities, as expected for bodies formed among the ices of the outer Solar System.[^molnar2008] ### Composition Most trojans fall in the spectroscopic D class, the type that dominates the outer [[Asteroid_belt|asteroid belt]]; a few are classed P or C.[^jewitt2004][^barucci2002] Their spectra are red or neutral and lack clear absorption bands.[^fernandez2003] Searches for [[Water|water]] ice and organics had produced no firm detection by 2007: Ennomos's albedo is slightly high, which could mean ice, and 911 Agamemnon and 617 Patroclus show very weak features near 1.7 and 2.3 μm that might be organic.[^yang2007] The spectra resemble those of Jupiter's irregular moons and, to some degree, [[Comet|comet]] nuclei, but are much less red than the surfaces of [[Kuiper_belt|Kuiper belt]] objects.[^yoshida2005][^jewitt2004] Fits to the spectra combine water ice with large amounts of [[Carbon|carbon]]-rich material and possibly magnesium-rich silicates.[^jewitt2004][^barucci2002] The composition looks uniform across the population, with no clear difference between the two camps.[^dotto2006] Density is the other clue. Marchis and colleagues used the mutual orbit of Patroclus and its companion, observed with the Keck telescope's adaptive optics, to derive a density of about 0.8 g/cm³, lower than that of water ice; such a porous, icy body looks more like a comet than a main-belt asteroid.[^marchis2006] Hektor's density from its rotational light curve, about 2.48 g/cm³, is three times higher, which led Lacerda and Jewitt to caution that density alone may not reveal where a body formed.[^lacerda2007] ## Origin and evolution Two families of explanation compete. In the first, the trojans are local: they formed near [[Jupiter]]'s orbit and were trapped as the planet grew. Jupiter's final growth was a runaway gathering of [[Hydrogen|hydrogen]] and [[Helium|helium]] gas from the surrounding [[Protoplanetary_disk|disc]] in which its mass rose tenfold in about 10,000 years, and planetesimals sharing its orbit were caught by the strengthening gravity, about half of them in models.[^marzari2002] That efficiency is the trouble. The scenario traps some ten thousand times more bodies than are seen and leaves them on orbits flatter than the observed ones.[^marzari2002] The same models predict few trojans for [[Saturn]], which agrees with the lack of any stable Saturn trojans.[^marzari1998] A variant in which Jupiter migrates while it grows can explain an excess at L4, because migration distorts the horseshoe orbits in favour of the leading side before they settle into tadpoles, but it too leaves a population three to four orders of magnitude too large.[^pirani2019] The second family ties the trojans to the upheaval described by the [[Nice_model|Nice model]]. There, the giant planets' orbits became unstable some roughly half a billion years (500–600 million) after the [[Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System|Solar System formed]], when Jupiter and Saturn passed through their 1:2 resonance; [[Uranus]] and [[Neptune]] were thrown outward into the primordial Kuiper belt, scattering its bodies inward in great numbers.[^levison2008] Morbidelli and colleagues showed that near that resonance the Lagrange regions stop being stable: any original trojans escape, and as Jupiter and Saturn move apart the door closes again, trapping some of the incoming planetesimals. Because those bodies had already been stirred by encounters with the giant planets, the captured population is highly inclined, as observed.[^morbidelli2005] In the later "jumping Jupiter" version, an ice giant scattered by Jupiter makes Jupiter's orbit shift abruptly; trojans are lost and captured at each jump, and the ice giant's last passage through one swarm can leave it depleted relative to the other, a possible cause of the L4–L5 asymmetry.[^nesvorny2013] Both versions place the trojans' birthplace among the icy bodies of the outer disc, linking them with the [[Kuiper_belt|Kuiper belt]]. The swarms are not permanently stable. Weak resonances with Jupiter and Saturn make trojan orbits slowly chaotic, and simulations find that up to 17% cannot survive for the Solar System's full age.[^robutel2005][^tsiganis2005] Collisions also chip material away. Escaped trojans may end up briefly bound to Jupiter as temporary moons, or as short-period [[Comet|comets]] of the Jupiter family; Levison and colleagues estimate that about 200 escaped trojans larger than 1 km are wandering through the planetary region, a few perhaps on Earth-crossing orbits, and those that approach the Sun may begin to lose ice like comets.[^levison1997][^jewitt2004] ## Exploration NASA selected the Lucy mission on 4 January 2017 as one of two new projects in its Discovery Program.[^nasa2017] The spacecraft launched on 16 October 2021 and uses repeated [[Earth]] gravity assists to reach both swarms.[^nasa-lucy][^dreier2015] On the way it passed the [[Asteroid_belt|main-belt]] asteroid 152830 Dinkinesh on 1 November 2023, finding a satellite, Selam, that is itself a contact binary, and it flew by 52246 Donaldjohanson on 20 April 2025.[^levison2024][^nasa-lucy] Its trojan tour begins in the leading swarm: 3548 Eurybates and its satellite Queta on 11 August 2027, 15094 Polymele on 14 September 2027, 11351 Leucus on 18 April 2028 and 21900 Orus on 11 November 2028. A further Earth flyby then turns the spacecraft back across the inner Solar System to the trailing swarm, where it is scheduled to pass the Patroclus–Menoetius binary on 3 March 2033, about eleven and a half years after launch (derived).[^nasa-lucy][^lucy-tour] Lucy is the first spacecraft sent to [[Jupiter]]'s trojans, and its close views of bodies of different spectral types and sizes are meant to test the rival origin models against real surfaces.[^nasa-lucy] ## See also - [[Hilda_asteroid]] · [[Asteroid_belt]] · [[Kirkwood_gap]] - [[Nice_model]] · [[Grand_tack_hypothesis]] - [[Hill_sphere]] - [[Jupiter]] · [[Galilean_moons]] - Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 - List of objects at Lagrangian points ## Notes Derived values: the February 2026 total is 9,738 + 5,931 = 15,669; a 26° arc at 5.2 AU is 5.2 × 26 × π/180 ≈ 2.4 AU; a mass of 10⁻⁴ Earth masses is 10⁻⁴ × 5.97 × 10²⁴ kg ≈ 6 × 10²⁰ kg; a 150-year libration is 150 / 11.86 ≈ 12.6 Jupiter orbits (Jupiter's sidereal period from the NASA fact sheet). The explorer's swarm points are ILLUSTRATIVE; only 624 Hektor uses catalogued orbital elements. ## References [^yoshida2005]: Yoshida, F.; Nakamura, T. (2005). "Size distribution of faint L4 Trojan asteroids". *The Astronomical Journal* 130: 2900–2911. https://doi.org/10.1086/497571 [^nicholson1961]: Nicholson, S. B. (1961). "The Trojan asteroids". *Astronomical Society of the Pacific Leaflets* 8: 239–246. Bibcode 1961ASPL....8..239N. [^mpc-jt]: Minor Planet Center (25 February 2026). "List of Jupiter Trojans". https://minorplanetcenter.net/iau/lists/JupiterTrojans.html [^mpc-trojans]: Minor Planet Center (20 October 2025). "Trojan minor planets". https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/lists/Trojans.html [^tedesco2002]: Tedesco, E. F.; Desert, F.-X. (2002). "The Infrared Space Observatory Deep Asteroid Search". *The Astronomical Journal* 123: 2070–2082. https://doi.org/10.1086/339482 [^nakamura2008]: Nakamura, T.; Yoshida, F. (2008). "A new surface density model of Jovian Trojans around triangular libration points". *Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan* 60: 293–296. https://doi.org/10.1093/pasj/60.2.293 [^dotto2006]: Dotto, E.; Fornasier, S.; Barucci, M. A.; et al. (2006). "The surface composition of Jupiter Trojans: visible and near-infrared survey of dynamical families". *Icarus* 183: 420–434. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2006.02.012 [^jewitt2004]: Jewitt, D. C.; Sheppard, S.; Porco, C. (2004). "Jupiter's outer satellites and Trojans". In Bagenal, F.; Dowling, T. E.; McKinnon, W. B. (eds.), *Jupiter: The Planet, Satellites and Magnetosphere*. Cambridge University Press, pp. 263–280. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5a3f/11d47003a555cd96499776edc3adfb47f5fd.pdf [^marzari2002]: Marzari, F.; Scholl, H.; Murray, C.; Lagerkvist, C. (2002). "Origin and evolution of Trojan asteroids". In Bottke, W. F.; et al. (eds.), *Asteroids III*. University of Arizona Press, pp. 725–738. http://www.lpi.usra.edu/books/AsteroidsIII/pdf/3007.pdf [^barucci2002]: Barucci, M. A.; Cruikshank, D. P.; Mottola, S.; Lazzarin, M. (2002). "Physical properties of Trojan and Centaur asteroids". In Bottke, W. F.; et al. (eds.), *Asteroids III*. University of Arizona Press, pp. 273–287. [^morbidelli2005]: Morbidelli, A.; Levison, H. F.; Tsiganis, K.; Gomes, R. (2005). "Chaotic capture of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids in the early Solar System". *Nature* 435: 462–465. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03540 [^nasa-lucy]: NASA Science. "Lucy" (mission page). https://science.nasa.gov/mission/lucy/ [^sheppard2006]: Sheppard, S. S.; Trujillo, C. A. (2006). "A thick cloud of Neptune Trojans and their colors". *Science* 313: 511–514. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1127173 [^connors2011]: Connors, M.; Wiegert, P.; Veillet, C. (2011). "Earth's Trojan asteroid". *Nature* 475: 481–483. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10233 [^jewitt2000]: Jewitt, D. C.; Trujillo, C. A.; Luu, J. X. (2000). "Population and size distribution of small Jovian Trojan asteroids". *The Astronomical Journal* 120: 1140–1147. https://doi.org/10.1086/301453 [^nasa-fs]: NASA NSSDCA. Planetary Fact Sheet (Jupiter and Earth). https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/ (fetched 2026-09-18). [^marsden1999]: Marsden, B. G. (1 October 1999). "The earliest observation of a Trojan". Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/pressinfo/TheFirstTrojanObs.html [^einarsson1913]: Einarsson, S. (1913). "The minor planets of the Trojan group". *Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific* 25: 131–133. https://doi.org/10.1086/122216 [^wyse1938]: Wyse, A. B. (1938). "The Trojan group". *Astronomical Society of the Pacific Leaflets* 3: 113–119. Bibcode 1938ASPL....3..113W. [^fernandez2003]: Fernández, Y. R.; Sheppard, S. S.; Jewitt, D. C. (2003). "The albedo distribution of Jovian Trojan asteroids". *The Astronomical Journal* 126: 1563–1574. https://doi.org/10.1086/377015 [^cosmos-trojans]: "Trojan asteroids". *COSMOS – The SAO Encyclopedia of Astronomy*. Swinburne University of Technology. http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/T/Trojan+Asteroids [^mpec2020]: Minor Planet Center (15 October 2020). "MPEC 2020-T164". https://minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K20/K20TG4.html [^wgsbn]: IAU Working Group Small Bodies Nomenclature. "WGSBN Bulletins" (accessed 4 May 2026). https://www.wgsbn-iau.org/ [^fernandez2009]: Fernández, Y. R.; Jewitt, D.; Ziffer, J. E. (2009). "Albedos of small Jovian Trojans". *The Astronomical Journal* 138: 240–250. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-6256/138/1/240 [^merline2001]: Merline, W. J.; et al. (2001). "S/2001 (617) 1". *IAU Circular* 7741. http://cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iauc/07700/07741.html#Item2 [^marchis2006]: Marchis, F.; Hestroffer, D.; Descamps, P.; et al. (2006). "A low density of 0.8 g cm⁻³ for the Trojan binary asteroid 617 Patroclus". *Nature* 439: 565–567. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04350 [^iauc8732]: "S/2006 (624) 1". *IAU Circular* 8732 (2006). http://cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iauc/08700/08732.html#Item1 [^lacerda2007]: Lacerda, P.; Jewitt, D. C. (2007). "Densities of Solar System objects from their rotational light curves". *The Astronomical Journal* 133: 1393–1408. https://doi.org/10.1086/511772 [^molnar2008]: Molnar, L. A.; Haegert, M. J.; Hoogeboom, K. M. (2008). "Lightcurve analysis of an unbiased sample of Trojan asteroids". *The Minor Planet Bulletin* 35: 82–84. Bibcode 2008MPBu...35...82M. [^yang2007]: Yang, B.; Jewitt, D. (2007). "Spectroscopic search for water ice on Jovian Trojan asteroids". *The Astronomical Journal* 134: 223–228. https://doi.org/10.1086/518368 [^marzari1998]: Marzari, F.; Scholl, H. (1998). "The growth of Jupiter and Saturn and the capture of Trojans". *Astronomy and Astrophysics* 339: 278–285. 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"The observed Trojans and the global dynamics around the Lagrangian points of the Sun–Jupiter system". *Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy* 92: 53–69. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10569-004-5976-y [^tsiganis2005]: Tsiganis, K.; Varvoglis, H.; Dvorak, R. (2005). "Chaotic diffusion and effective stability of Jupiter Trojans". *Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy* 92: 71–87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10569-004-3975-7 [^levison1997]: Levison, H. F.; Shoemaker, E. M.; Shoemaker, C. S. (1997). "Dynamical evolution of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids". *Nature* 385: 42–44. https://doi.org/10.1038/385042a0 [^nasa2017]: Northon, K. (4 January 2017). "NASA selects two missions to explore the early Solar System". NASA press release. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-two-missions-to-explore-the-early-solar-system/ [^levison2024]: Levison, H. F.; Marchi, S.; Noll, K. S.; et al. (2024). "A contact binary satellite of the asteroid (152830) Dinkinesh". *Nature* 629: 1015–1020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07378-0 [^lucy-tour]: Southwest Research Institute. "Tour". *Lucy Mission*. http://lucy.swri.edu/mission/Tour.html [^openstax]: Ling, S. J.; Sanny, J.; Moebs, W. (2016). *University Physics Volume 1*, ch. 13 "Gravitation". OpenStax. https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/university-physics-volume-1 [^dreier2015]: Dreier, C.; Lakdawalla, E. (30 September 2015). "NASA announces five Discovery proposals selected for further study". The Planetary Society. http://www.planetary.org/blogs/casey-dreier/2015/09301336-discovery-downselect.html ## External links - NASA Science: Lucy mission. https://science.nasa.gov/mission/lucy/ - Minor Planet Center: List of Jupiter Trojans. https://minorplanetcenter.net/iau/lists/JupiterTrojans.html - JPL Small-Body Database: 624 Hektor. https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=624 ## Wikipedia : Wikitube **Strict pair:** [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_trojan) : [Wikitube](https://en.wikitube.io/wiki/Jupiter_trojan) · pinned revision [1372350183](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1372350183) · 2026-09-18 ## Previous hub tags Hubs: `Life_Physics`. Portals: [[PORTAL_Solar_System]]. --- *Solar System portal child articles, wave 1 · 2026-09-18 · drafted · row SOL-053 · explorer state `?obj=trojans`.* <!-- hub_tags: Life_Physics · PORTAL_Solar_System -->