Horseshoe orbit

In celestial mechanics, a horseshoe orbit is a type of co-orbital motion of a small orbiting body relative to a larger orbiting body. The osculating (instantaneous) orbital period of the smaller body remains very near that of the larger body, and if its orbit is a little more eccentric than that of the larger body, during every period it appears to trace an ellipse around a point on the larger object's orbit. However, the loop is not closed but drifts forward or backward so that the point it circles will appear to move smoothly along the larger body's orbit over a long period of time. When the object approaches the larger body closely at either end of its trajectory, its apparent direction changes. Over an entire cycle the center traces the outline of a horseshoe, with the larger body between the 'horns'.

Asteroids in horseshoe orbits with respect to Earth include 54509 YORP, 2002 AA29, 2010 SO16, 2015 SO2 and possibly 2001 GO2. A broader definition includes 3753 Cruithne, which can be said to be in a compound and/or transition orbit,^[1] or (85770) 1998 UP1 and 2003 YN107. By 2016, 12 horseshoe librators of Earth have been discovered.^[2]

Saturn's moons Epimetheus and Janus occupy horseshoe orbits with respect to each other (in their case, there is no repeated looping: each one traces a full horseshoe with respect to the other).