The Mysterious Origins of Mars’s Trailing Asteroids
A cluster of space rocks orbiting the planet may have come from within the planet itself.
In 1990, astronomers detected an asteroid, about one mile wide, trailing Mars. In the spirit of discovery, they named it Eureka. Over the next few years, they found a few more, six near Eureka, and two in other locations in Mars’s orbit. The rocky bodies are known as Trojans, the name given to asteroids that exist in stable spots around their parent planet and share its orbit
