Neptune Shares

Recent studies of trojan asteroids has discovered that Neptune is currently sharing its orbit with three trojan asteroids. Less famous than Jupiter for its trojan asteroid count, this recent find now brings the number of asteroids held by Neptune to four. The discovery makes the Neptune trojan asteroids the fourth group of asteroids with a stable orbit around the sun. Scientists suspect that there are many more trojan asteroids revolving around the planet, but are unable to detect them due to their great distance from the sun. In the picture seen below, we are able to see the four asteroids on their path following Neptune's orbit. It is not suspected that that any of these asteroids will collide with Neptune in the near future. For now though, scientists will continue to observe the group in an attempt to locate even more asteroids within the group.

More Cassani Exploration

Another recent flyby the poles of Enceladus has produced many more images of Saturn's now most familiar satellites. These new photos simply highlight the fine fractures (or tiger stripes) in the surface of Enceladus and with enhanced imaging, show the small collections of ice around them. Unfortunately, this is the final opportunity astronomers will have to capture images such as this in a very long time. The next flyby for the satelite is in over a year and with the sun shifting from focus on the southern pole, it is expected images will not be as clear. Hopefully this is not the last chance we will have to look at one of the bodies which could possibly support life, but for now, we will be required to wait at least a year until we get a closer look. Below are a few images taken from the NASA Cassini mission webiste from the recent flyby.