2001 QR322 (also written 2001 QR322) is an asteroid discovered in 2001 that is one of the two currently known Trojan asteroid of Neptune (the other is 2004 UP10). It orbits ahead of Neptune at its L4Lagrangian point. In ancient times, only the Sun and Moon, a few hundred stars and the most easily visible planets had names. ... An asteroid is a small, solid object in our Solar System, orbiting the Sun. ... 2001: A Space Odyssey 2001 2001 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Image of the Trojan asteroids in front of and behind Jupiter along its orbital path. ... Atmospheric characteristics Surface pressure ≫100 MPa Hydrogen - H2 80% ±3. ... The Lagrangian points, (also Lagrange point, L-point, or libration point) are the five positions in space where a small object can be stationary with respect to two larger objects (such as a satellite with respect to the Earth and Moon). ...
The object, catalogued as 2001QR322, is the first to be found in association with Neptune.
2001QR322 was found during a survey of the outer Solar System using telescopes in the US and Chile funded by the US space agency (Nasa).
Astronomer Eugene Chiang said: "The orbit of 2001QR322 is remarkably stable; projections of its trajectory into the future reveal that it can co-orbit with Neptune for at least billions of years.
2001QR322 was discovered in the course of the Deep Ecliptic Survey, a NASA-funded survey of the outer solar system that uses the National Science Foundation's telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, AZ, and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.
The team first detected 2001QR322 on August 21, 2001, in deep digital images taken with the 4-meter Blanco Telescope at Cerro Tololo by Marc Buie, Robert Millis, and Lawrence Wasserman of Lowell Observatory.
"It is likely that 2001QR322 is a dynamically pristine object whose orbital eccentricity and inclination have been largely unaltered by processes that afflicted the majority of bodies in the outer solar system," said Chiang.
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