Three new Trojan asteroids found at Neptune
Bringing the totla to four.
From SpaceRef
Date Released: Thursday, June 15, 2006
Source: Carnegie Institution
Washington, DC – Three new objects locked into roughly the same orbit as Neptune--called "Trojan" asteroids--have been found by researchers from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) and the Gemini Observatory in Hilo, Hawaii. The discovery offers evidence that Neptune, much like its big cousin Jupiter, hosts thick clouds of Trojans in its orbit, and that these asteroids probably share a common source. It also brings the total of known Neptune Trojans to four.
Credit: (Image courtesy Scott Sheppard)
Interesting;
A large population of high-inclination Neptune Trojans would rule out the possibility that they are left over from early in the solar system's history, since unaltered primordial asteroid groups should be closely aligned with the plane of the solar system. These clouds probably formed much like Jupiter's Trojan clouds did: once the giant planets settled into their paths around the Sun, any asteroid that happened to be in the Trojan region "froze" into its orbit.