is a small

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

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 The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS1; List of observatory codes, obs. code: IAU code#F51, F51 and Pan-STARRS2 obs. code: IAU code#F52, F52) located at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, US, consists of astronomical ...

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 unit The astronomical unit (symbol: au or AU) is a unit of length defined to be exactly equal to . Historically, the astronomical unit was conceived as the average Earth-Sun distance (the average of Earth's aphelion and perihelion), before its m ...

s; AU) is very similar to that of Venus but it has high eccentricity (0.6115) and 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

Animation of 2013 ND15 relative to Sun and Venus

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 Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

. 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 The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is the official body for observing and reporting on minor planets under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Founded in 1947, it operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Funct ...

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

;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