22404 Skujyte

22404 Skujytė (provisional designation 1995 ME4) is a large Jupiter Trojan asteroid, an asteroid that shares Jupiter's orbit around the Sun, residing in the leading L4 Lagrangian swarm.

Orbit

The asteroid follows a typical Trojan orbit locked in a 1:1 mean-motion resonance with Jupiter, with a Jupiter Tisserand parameter (orbit value distinguishing asteroid types) of 3.0.¹ Its semimajor axis of 5.2537 au places it just beyond Jupiter's own 5.2 au orbit, and its eccentricity of 0.1191 carries it between 4.628 au at perihelion and 5.879 au at aphelion over a 12.042-year period.¹ The orbit is inclined 9.3014° to the ecliptic.¹ Computed perihelion passages fall on July 5, 2023, July 21, 2035, and August 5, 2047.¹

Size and physical character

Diameter estimates depend on the assumed reflectivity of the surface. A catalog value of about 20 km appears in minor-planet listings, while a brightness-based estimate gives a range of 9.785 to 21.880 km, with a single derived value near 12.6 km; at that size the object is larger than 99 percent of known asteroids.² Its absolute magnitude of 12.16 measures how bright it would appear at 1 au from both the Sun and the observer.¹

Observational record

The orbit is well constrained. The Minor Planet Center's data services record 1,568 observations spanning 22 oppositions between 1995 and 2026, with the most recent observation on April 21, 2026.¹ Because the orbit never approaches Earth, remaining at least 3.64 au from Earth's orbit at its closest point, JPL's close-approach simulations show no encounters, and the asteroid is not considered a viable target for human exploration by the NHATS study.²

Context among Jupiter Trojans

Jupiter Trojans are asteroids librating around the stable L4 and L5 Lagrangian points of the Sun–Jupiter system, 60 degrees ahead of and behind the planet, in a 1:1 mean-motion resonance.³ Long-term numerical simulations of the observed Trojan population show that not all members remain stable over the age of the Solar System: Trojans escape from the resonance at a rate about 1.1 times greater from L5 than from L4, and roughly 18 L4 Trojans larger than 1 km in diameter are ejected every million years, mostly drifting toward the comet and Centaur regions.³ Objects with orbits similar to Skujytė's include 1208 Troilus, 2223 Sarpedon, and 4709 Ennomos.²

References

1. Planetka 1995 ME4 (22404), Planety.cz orbital data
2. Asteroid 22404 (1995 ME4), Space Reference
3. Di Sisto, Ramos & Gallardo (2018). The dynamical evolution of escaped Jupiter Trojan asteroids, link to other minor body populations. arXiv.

Initially written Oct 21, 2026 · Edited: Oct 25, 2026

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