It just doesn’t get any bigger than this: today a discovery by Canadian researchers is gracing the cover of Nature magazine. It is not an understatement to say that this is the science equivalent of getting your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone, and I do sincerely hope Martin Connors, Paul Wiegert and their French colleague Chistian Veillet are enjoying their moment in the international spotlight.
So, what’s precipitated this moment of mass adulation and fame? An asteroid. Its name is a bit of a mouthful, 2010 TK7, which according to my limited understanding of the vagaries of the provisional naming system, means it was first discovered in early October of 2010, and that it was the 185th new object to be discovered in that two-week period. But what’s made it so famous is that it seems to be the first example of a Trojan companion for the Earth.
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