Who discovered the first Jupiter trojan and when?
German astronomer Max Wolf spotted the first Jupiter trojan in February 1906. He named this asteroid 588 Achilles and found it at the L4 Lagrangian point of the Sun-Jupiter system.
Questions about Jupiter trojan
Short answers, pulled from the story.
How many Jupiter trojans are known as of June 2025?
Current records list 9,694 trojans at the leading point and 5,628 trailing behind. As of June 2025 twenty-four Jupiter trojans have received athlete names under new naming rules.
What is the largest known Jupiter trojan and how wide is it?
The largest known trojan measures 203 kilometers wide and carries the name 624 Hektor. Few large objects exist compared to the vast population of smaller ones.
When did NASA launch the Lucy mission to study Jupiter trojans?
NASA selected Lucy as one of two Discovery Program missions on the 4th of January 2017. The spacecraft launched the 16th of October 2021 and will reach the L4 Trojan cloud in 2027 following Earth gravity assists.
Where do Jupiter trojans orbit relative to the Sun and Jupiter?
Jupiter trojans orbit between 5.05 and 5.35 astronomical units from the Sun with an average semi-major axis near 5.2 AU. Each swarm stretches roughly 26 degrees along Jupiter's path covering about 2.5 AU total distance.