Jupiter trojan
Eurybates
A Jupiter trojan with a tiny moon, Queta – the largest piece of an ancient collisional family and a future target of NASA's Lucy.
- Distance from Earth today
- 983.7 million km6.576 AU · light: 54 min 41 s
- Distance from the Sun today
- 835.6 million km5.586 AU
- As of
- 3 November 2026position from NASA/JPL orbital elements
Where it is today
Top view of the plane of Earth’s orbit, compressed distance scale. Open on the big map with the time slider →
Facts
- Diameter
- 64 km
- Rotation period
- 8.7 h
- Semi-major axis
- 5.218 AU (780.6 million km)
- Perihelion
- 4.746 AU
- Aphelion
- 5.690 AU
- Orbital period
- 11.92 years
- Orbital eccentricity
- 0.090
- Orbital inclination
- 8.1°
- Last perihelion
- 10 April 2022
- Next perihelion
- 12 March 2034 (approximate)
- Minimum orbit distance from Earth’s orbit (MOID)
- 3.761 AU (562.6 million km)
- Albedo
- 0.052
Source of the figures: JPL Small-Body Database (public domain).
Discovery: 1973 – Cornelis Johannes van Houten, Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld, Tom Gehrels
Description
Eurybates is one of the Jupiter trojans, asteroids that share Jupiter's orbit around the Sun, gathered in two swarms ahead of and behind the planet. It was found in 1973 in the Palomar–Leiden survey of trojans. Eurybates is the largest remnant of the only well-established collisional family among the trojans, and in 2020 Hubble images revealed a tiny moon, named Queta. It is one of the targets of NASA's Lucy mission, which is scheduled to fly past it in 2027 as part of its tour of these primitive bodies.