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 interesting surprises can also be found near the Earth. Proof of this is a recent discovery by Canadian astronomers at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. It was they who discovered a unique "Trojan" satellite of the planet Uranus, which later received the name 2011 QF99. By the way, in 2010, the first asteroid of this type was also found near the Earth. Its name is 2010 TK7 and its diameter is three hundred meters.
What is interesting about "Trojan" asteroids
This type of celestial bodies got its name because its representatives have a curious feature: they are located in the same orbit as the planets themselves, located directly in their vicinity, and the probability of their collision is almost zero. Such stability is associated with the special arrangement of the Trojans' orbits: they necessarily pass through the Lagrange points, in which the forces of gravity mutually balance each other.
It should be noted that the satellite of Uranus discovered by the Canadians is the only one of its kind, since until that time many astrophysicists believed that cosmic bodies of this type could not be located near Uranus in principle. In their opinion, the gravity of other space objects in this part of our solar system will inevitably push the "Trojans" out of their orbits. Nevertheless, the new satellite of Uranus is not going to leave its current location at all. We add that the diameter of this object in cross section is 60 km, and the main components are ice and rocks that are often found in comets.
Other "fellow travelers" of the azure giant
Each satellite of Uranus, as well as the planet itself, rotates in an orbit almost perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic. Uranus has not so few of them. To date, astrophysicists have discovered five large and about a dozen small satellites of this planet. The lightest of them is Ariel. Its opposite - Umbriel, on the contrary, is darker than all its neighbors. Titania, as the name suggests, is the largest moon of Uranus. On its surface there are many valleys and faults and an infinite number of craters. The diameter of this satellite is 1580 km. Miranda is the most mysterious space traveler. The latter surprises many with its structure: it seems as if it consists offour or three giant boulders. Closes the top five Oberon - the second largest and largest satellite of Uranus. Scientists knew about these space objects even before the first pictures were taken from Voyager 2. Thanks to this apparatus, people learned about the other ten satellites, two of which serve as a kind of "shepherd" for the rings, similar to how it happens on Saturn.
And recent research has allowed scientists to identify other small space objects revolving around Uranus. To date, the number of open satellites is starting to cross the second ten, which makes the azure giant the leader of our system in terms of the number of its celestial "fellow travelers".
