A Trojan planet is a planet orbiting in the Lagrangian point of a star and a massive orbiting body, a gas giant or potentially a smaller companion star.
No Trojan planets are currently known to exist, so their existence is purely theoretical. However, some of Saturn's moons have smaller Trojan moons, and Jupiter is bracketed by Trojan asteroids. Theia, an object similar to a Trojan planet (except that it formed in Earth's orbit instead of a more massive planet) is one element of the giant impact hypothesis, which posits that this planet collided with Earth, creating the moon.
See also
- Trojan asteroid
- Trojan moon
- Trojan (astronomy)
- List of objects at Lagrangian points
- Lagrangian point
References
- Eric B. Ford and Matthew J. Holman (2007). "Using Transit Timing Observations to Search for Trojans of Transiting Extrasolar Planets". The Astrophysical Journal Letters 664 (1): L51–L54. doi:. http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/571/1/528/55113.html.
External links
- A Search for Trojan Planets Web page of group of astronomers searching for extra-solar Trojan Planets at Appalachian State University
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