In astronomy, what is a trojan?

In astronomy, a trojan is a small celestial body that shares the orbit of a larger one, remaining in a stable orbit approximately 60° ahead or behind the main body near one of its Lagrangian points L4 and L5. Trojans can share the orbits of planets or of large moons.

Trojans are one type of co-orbital object. In this arrangement, a star and a planet orbit about their common barycenter, which is close to the center of the star because it is usually much more massive than the orbiting planet. In turn, a much smaller mass than both the star and the planet, located at one of the Lagrangian points of the star–planet system, is subject to a combined gravitational force that acts through this barycenter. Hence the smallest object orbits around the barycenter with the same orbital period as the planet, and the arrangement can remain stable over time.