Asteroid 2012 XE133: a transient companion to Venus

TL;DR

This paper identifies asteroid 2012 XE133 as a transient Venus co-orbital, analyzes its chaotic orbital dynamics influenced by Earth and Mercury, and suggests many similar objects may temporarily share Venus's orbit.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of 2012 XE133's orbit, revealing its transitional co-orbital status and the role of Earth-Moon system in controlling Venus co-orbitals.

Findings

2012 XE133 is a temporary Venus co-orbital following a transitional trajectory.

The dynamical behavior of Venus co-orbitals is primarily influenced by Earth-Moon interactions.

Many small, similar objects could be transient co-orbitals of Venus, with potential for future collisions.

Abstract

Apart from Mercury that has no known co-orbital companions, Venus remains as the inner planet that hosts the smallest number of known co-orbitals (two): (322756) 2001 CK32 and 2002 VE68. Both objects have absolute magnitudes 18 < H < 21 and were identified as Venus co-orbitals in 2004. Here, we analyse the orbit of the recently discovered asteroid 2012 XE133 with H = 23.5 mag to conclude that it is a new Venus co-orbital currently following a transitional trajectory between Venus' Lagrangian points L5 and L3. The object could have been a 1:1 librator for several thousand years and it may leave the resonance with Venus within the next few hundred years, after a close encounter with the Earth. Our calculations show that its dynamical status as co-orbital, as well as that of the two previously known Venus co-orbitals, is controlled by the Earth-Moon system with Mercury playing a secondary role. The three temporary co-orbitals follow rather chaotic but similar trajectories with e-folding times of the order of 100 yr. Out of the three co-orbitals, 2012 XE133 currently follows the most perturbed path. An actual collision with the Earth during the next 10000 yr cannot be discarded. Extrapolation of the number distribution of Venus co-orbitals as a function of the absolute magnitude suggests that dozens of objects similar to 2012 XE133 could be transient companions to Venus. Some additional objects that were or will be transient co-orbitals to Venus are also briefly discussed.