perturbations may knock out L5 asteroids, (was: I

Sailor asked:
Are there trapped asteroids in the Earth-Moon L5 area ?

I was told "probablynot, at least not for long"

That question asked at a conference, (probably a old ssi.org
conference), to someone who was
analyzing asteroid orbits.

The problem is thatperturbationsfrom the Sun,Jupiter, and inner
planets will likely kick
asteroids out of the Earth - Lunar L4 & L5 areas.
That is also _probably_ true of the Sun-Earth Lagrange areas, and
Sun-Mars L's.
Note that asteroids are not likely to be trapped in the L points
without someperturbation.
Another way to state that is: an asteroid can pass right through L5
without stopping,
unless there is something to change it's energy.
So my guess is that there may only atiny amount of material
temporarily trapped there due
to perturbations by other planets, ... only temporarily. Such as the
possibleKordylewski
dust cloud

But asteroids are trapped in the Sun-Jupiter L4 & L5 areas,
and the other large planet's, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_objects_at_Lagrangian_points.

Also note that L4 & L5 should be thought of, not as 'points', but as
regions where objects
slowly drift around the mathematical L4 / L5 points. Objects can
migrate from L4 via L3 to L5 and back.

- Bruce Mackenzie
Mars Foundation MarsHome.org
BMackenzie@...
Skype: BruceMacknz

On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 2:11 AM, sailor.barsoom wrote:
>
> This talk about the Moon is better because it's always
> close to Earth vs. asteroids are better because they have
> negligible gravity wells and a greater diversity of
> materials...
>
> The fifth Lagrangian point (L5) in the Earth/Moon system
> was considered as a location for Space habitats because
> an object placed there (or at L4) tends to stay there.
>
> But doesn't that mean that there may already be something
> there? Asteroidal material could be trapped at L5 and at
> L4, thus offering us the best of both worlds: always
> close to the Earth, negligible gravity well, diversity of
> materials.
>
> I've asked in this forum if this could be possible, and
> the answer seems to be: maybe, but nobody knows for sure.
> I'm going to guess that there isn't anything very big
> there, or we would have noticed it by now. So nothing
> thousands of metres across, and probably not hundreds.
> But ten metres maybe? Or dozens of objects ranging from
> one to five metres? It would sure be interesting if it
> were true, and it's probably worth a couple of million
> bucks just to find out....

...