2013 ND15 explained

is a small asteroid that is a temporary trojan of Venus. Located at Venus's, it is the first known Venus trojan.

Discovery, orbit and physical properties

was discovered on 13 July 2013 by N. Primak, A. Schultz, T. Goggia and K. Chambers, observing for the Pan-STARRS project. As of September 2014, it has been observed 21 times with a data-arc span of 26 days. It is an Aten asteroid and its semi-major axis (0.7235 astronomical units; AU) is very similar to that of Venus but it has a high eccentricity (0.6115) and a small orbital inclination (4.794°). With an absolute magnitude of 24.1, it has a diameter in the range 40–100 m (for an assumed albedo range of 0.04–0.20).

Trojan dynamical state and orbital evolution

has been identified as a Venus trojan following a tadpole orbit around Venus's Lagrangian point . Besides being a Venus co-orbital, this asteroid is also a Mercury crosser and an Earth crosser. exhibits resonant (or near-resonant) behavior with Mercury, Venus and Earth. Its short-term dynamical evolution is different from that of the other three Venus co-orbitals,,, and .

Potentially hazardous asteroid

is not included in the Minor Planet Center list of potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) because its absolute magnitude is greater than 22.0, even though it comes to within 0.05 AU of Earth periodically. It approached Earth at 0.077 AU on 21 June 2016.

Notes

• This is assuming an albedo of 0.20–0.04.

References

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Further reading

• Understanding the Distribution of Near-Earth Asteroids Bottke, W. F., Jedicke, R., Morbidelli, A., Petit, J.-M., Gladman, B. 2000, Science, Vol. 288, Issue 5474, pp. 2190–2194.
• A Numerical Survey of Transient Co-orbitals of the Terrestrial Planets Christou, A. A. 2000, Icarus, Vol. 144, Issue 1, pp. 1–20.
• Debiased Orbital and Absolute Magnitude Distribution of the Near-Earth Objects Bottke, W. F., Morbidelli, A., Jedicke, R., Petit, J.-M., Levison, H. F., Michel, P., Metcalfe, T. S. 2002, Icarus, Vol. 156, Issue 2, pp. 399–433.
• Transient co-orbital asteroids Brasser, R., Innanen, K. A., Connors, M., Veillet, C., Wiegert, P., Mikkola, S., Chodas, P. W. 2004, Icarus, Vol. 171, Issue 1, pp. 102–109.
• The population of Near Earth Asteroids in coorbital motion with Venus Morais, M. H. M., Morbidelli, A. 2006, Icarus, Vol. 185, Issue 1, pp. 29–38.
• Asteroid 2013 ND15: Trojan companion to Venus, PHA to the Earth de la Fuente Marcos, C., de la Fuente Marcos, R. 2013, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 439, Issue 3, pp. 2970–2977.

External links

• Discovery MPEC
• data at MPC
• List of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs)

Notes and References

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20100614034948/http://www.minorplanetcenter.org/iau/lists/Atens.html List Of Aten Minor Planets
2. 2013 ND15. 3645042. 3 April 2016.
3. https://newton.spacedys.com/astdys/index.php?pc=1.1.0&n=2013+ND15 AstDys-2 on 2013 ND15
4. https://newton.spacedys.com/neodys2/index.php?pc=1.1.0&n=2013+ND15 NEODyS-2 on 2013 ND15
5. https://web.archive.org/web/20010302182040/http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/glossary/h.html Absolute-magnitude conversion table (H)
6. Asteroid 2013 ND15: Trojan companion to Venus, PHA to the Earth . C. . de la Fuente Marcos . de la Fuente Marcos. R. . . 2014 . 439 . 3 . 2970–2977 . 10.1093/mnras/stu152 . free . 1401.5013 . 2014MNRAS.439.2970D.