Article by: Andacs Robert Eugen, on 24 August 2022, at 09:45 am Los Angeles time

The asteroid, called Trojan 2010 TK7, has a diameter of only 274 meters. 

Earth is thus the fourth planet in our solar system to share an orbit with an asteroid. Such celestial bodies have been found so far only in the orbits of the planets Jupiter, Neptune, and Mars. Jupiter has nearly 5,000. The asteroid does not represent a danger to the Earth, scientists want to reassure us. 

It is now 50 million miles away from us and will never come closer than 18 million miles. 

"These celestial bodies are difficult to find from Earth, because they are not very big and because they are closer to the Sun than to the Earth. But we can find them in space, and the satellites of the future will most likely discover others too", explained Christian Veillet from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.