Trojan asteroids "could be potential targets to go to with spacecraft" says the co-author of a report into a new space find, in an interview with the BBC.
Christian Veillet of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope was speaking following the announcement in Nature journal that a 200 to 300 metre-wide Trojan has been discovered close to Earth by Nasa's Wise telescope.
Trojans are large bits of space rock that share orbits with planets around the sun.
Known as 2010 TK7, this Trojan could pave the way for a new field of space exploration, and a fresh focus for collectors of space memorabilia and space rock.
"Future satellites will likely find some more," adds Veillet.
"We think that there are others which will be very close to the Earth and have motions that make them relatively easy to reach."
 This piece of the Seymchan Pallasite meteorite made $9,150 at Bonhams in May |
Currently around 80m km from Earth, 2010 TK7 could come as close as 25m km. The Moon, in comparison, varies from 350,000 to 400,000 km away from us.
A date for such a trip is still very much up in the air, however.
Following the recent end to Nasa's space shuttle programme, space collectors have been wondering where their hobby will next take them, with China looking the best bet to lead the space exploration field in the coming years.
Space rocks which arrive on Earth are highly collectible.
A large complete slice from the Seymchan Pallasite, a meteorite discovered in Russia in 1967, sold at Bonhams for $9,150 in May.
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