2008 LC18

2008 LC18 is a Neptune Trojan, which was discovered on June 7, 2008 by Scott S. Sheppard and Chad Trujillo using the Subaru telescope.

It was the seventh such object that was discovered, and also the first that was found in the region of the subsequent L5 Lagrange point, 60 ° beyond Neptune. It has the same orbital period as Neptune.

It has an orbital inclination of 27.5 °. This is the second highest orbital inclination of all known Neptune Trojans (August 2010).

With an absolute magnitude of 8M, 4 it has an estimated diameter of about 100 km.

The discovery of Neptune L5 Trojans is complicated by the fact that they are located in a region of space that lies on a line of sight to the center of our Milky Way, an area of ​​the sky, which is strong populated by stars. 2008 LC18 was found in an area where the background stars are obscured by a cloud of dust. The discovery of Neptune L5 Trojan in a study area of 19 square degrees shall close that there are 150 Neptune L5 Trojans with a diameter greater than about 80 km ( 24 size) where, similar to the estimation of such objects in Neptune's L4 swarm.

2008 LC18 will not be close enough for investigation by the New Horizons probe when it crosses Neptune's L5 region on the way to Pluto from 2013 to 2014, but its discovery demonstrates that other, better situated Neptune Trojans could be by then potentially found. 2008 LC18 2011 crossed the plane of the ecliptic.