"Troyan" satellite of Uranus and other interesting facts about the "fellow travelers" of this planet

It would seem that our solar system has long been well studied, and it's time to go to explore other worlds. But it was not there! It turns out that nearby the Earth you can also find interesting surprises. Proof of this is the recent discovery of Canadian astronomers from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver . They discovered a unique "Trojan" companion of the planet Uranus, which later received the name of the 2011 QF99. By the way, in 2010, near the Earth, the first asteroid of this type was also found. Its name is 2010 TK7, and the diameter is three hundred meters.

What are the interesting "Trojan" asteroids

This kind of celestial bodies got its name because its representatives have a curious feature: they are located in the same orbit as the planets themselves, which are directly in their vicinity, and the probability of their collision is practically zero. This stability is associated with a special arrangement of the orbits of the "Trojans": they necessarily pass through the Lagrange points, in which the forces of gravity mutually balance each other.

It should be noted that the open satellite of Uranus, discovered by Canadians, is the only one of its kind, since until this time many astrophysicists believed that near cosmic cosmic bodies of this kind can not be in principle. In their opinion, the gravity of other space objects in this part of our solar system will inevitably push the "Trojans" from their orbits. Nevertheless, the new satellite of Uranus is not going to leave its current location. We add that the diameter of this object in cross section is 60 km, and the main components are ice and such rocks that are often found in comets.

Other "companions" of the azure giant

Each satellite of Uranus, as indeed the planet itself, rotates in an orbit almost perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic. They are not so little in Uranus. To date, astrophysicists have discovered five large and about a dozen small satellites of this planet. The brightest of them is Ariel. His opposite - Umbriel, on the contrary, is darker than all its neighbors. Titania, as one can guess from the name, is the largest satellite of Uranus. On its surface are many valleys and faults and an endless number of craters. The diameter of this satellite is 1580 km. Miranda is the most mysterious space traveler. The last one surprises many with its structure: it seems as if it consists of four or three giant stone blocks. Closes the top five Oberon - the second largest and largest satellite of Uranus. Scientists knew about these space objects even before the first images from Voyager-2 were received. Thanks to this device, people learned about the remaining ten satellites, two of which serve as a kind of "shepherds" for the rings, just as Saturn does. And recent research has allowed scientists to identify other small space objects that revolve around Uranus. To date, the number of open satellites begins to exceed the second ten, which makes the azure giant the leader of our system in terms of the number of its heavenly "fellow travelers".