The mysterious objects may be far more common than we thought and may have brought water to Earth.
Early analysis of the fragments has shown something equally rare. The meteorite is an aubrite, a class with unknown origins that some scientists argue may be pieces of the planet Mercury.
While our census of hazardous NEOs is not nearly complete, we do have reliable maps of nearly all of the potentially hazardous asteroids larger than a kilometer (0.6 mile) across.
Astronomers already knew Earth had one Trojan. Now we know it has two, with the second announced on February 1, 2022. This new Earth Trojan has been labeled 2020 XL5.
