Horseshoe Co-orbitals of Earth: Current Population and New Candidates

TL;DR

This study investigates Earth's horseshoe co-orbitals, identifying new candidates and analyzing their dynamical behavior, stability durations, and libration periods, revealing diverse orbital characteristics and chaotic tendencies among these near-Earth objects.

Contribution

The paper identifies new horseshoe co-orbital candidates and provides detailed dynamical analysis of their stability and orbital periods, expanding understanding of Earth's co-orbital population.

Findings

Asteroids 2016 CO$_{246}$, 2017 SL$_{16}$, and 2017 XQ$_{60}$ are asymmetrical horseshoe orbiters.

Asteroid 2018 PN$_{22}$ exhibits chaotic behavior and may not stay in a horseshoe orbit beyond 200 years.

Horseshoe libration periods range from 125 to 411 years among studied objects.

Abstract

Most co-orbital objects in the Solar system are thought to follow tadpole-type orbits, behaving as Trojans. However, most of Earth's identified co-orbitals are moving along horseshoe-type orbits. The current tally of minor bodies considered to be Earth co-orbitals amounts to 18; of them, 12 are horseshoes, five are quasi-satellites, and one is a Trojan. The semimajor axis values of all these bodies librate between $0.983$ au and $1.017$ au. In this work, we have studied the dynamical behaviour of objects following orbits with semimajor axis within this range that may be in a 1:1 mean-motion resonance with Earth. Our results show that asteroids 2016 CO$_{246}$, 2017 SL$_{16}$, and 2017 XQ$_{60}$ are moving along asymmetrical horseshoe-type orbits; the asteroid 2018 PN$_{22}$ follows a nearly symmetric or regular horseshoe-type orbit. Asteroids 2016 CO$_{246}$, 2017 SL$_{16}$, and 2017 XQ$_{60}$ can remain in the horseshoe co-orbital state for about $900$ yr, $3300$ yr and $2700$ yr, respectively. Asteroid 2018 PN$_{22}$ has a more chaotic dynamical behaviour; it may not stay in a horseshoe co-orbital state for more than 200 yr. The horseshoe libration periods of 2016 CO$_{246}$, 2017 SL$_{16}$, 2017 XQ$_{60}$, and 2018 PN$_{22}$ are 280, 255, 411, and 125 yr, respectively.