When we talk of coorbital motion, we assume a three-body problem where two of the three bodies orbit the central one in approximately the same amount of time. In other words, the coorbital motion is a 1:1 mean motion resonance. Different asteroids and moons in the solar system exhibit this behavior with respect to a given planet and are of particular interest because they usually show a quite stable evolution. Given the recent hypothesis that the asteroid Kamo‘oalewa, in coorbital motion with the Earth, could have a lunar provenance, in this work we deepen this possibility, by estimating the steady-state number of Earth’s coorbitals coming from lunar ejecta, originated by a high enough energetic impact. The results show that the Moon can provide small Earth’s co-orbitals, characterized by a low eccentricity and inclination, but the main belt (mainly the inner region) can explain the known Earth’s co-orbital population. From the same main belt model, we get a high percentage of tadpole objects, not yet discovered. The work also indicates the possibility that spectroscopic and orbital characterization can constrain impact processes scaling laws.
12/05/2026
Speaker: Elisa Maria Alessi (IMATI-CNR)
Aula Gratton, Tuesday, May 12, at 12 CEST
Link to the streaming: https://meet.google.com/vjn-anyj-nww