Saturday, November 26, 2016

Lamentable Lagrange articles

Gravity doesn't cancel at the Lagrange points

"There are places in the Solar System where the forces of gravity balance out perfectly. Places we can use to position satellites, space telescopes and even colonies to establish our exploration of the Solar System. These are the Lagrange Points."

From Fraser Cain's video on Lagrange points. A lot of pop sci Lagrange articles repeat and spread this bad meme. It just ain't so.

The 5 Lagrange points can be found in many two body systems. They can be Sun-Jupiter, Earth-Moon, Jupiter, Europa -- Any pair of dancers has this retinue of 5 Lagrange regions moving along with them. Above are the 5 Pluto-Charon Lagrange points. Also pictured are the gravity vectors these bodies exert. Pluto's gravity is indicated with purple vectors and these point towards Pluto's center. Charon's gravity is indicated with orange vectors and these point towards Charon's center.

For the gravity vectors to cancel each other, they need to be equal and pointing in opposite directions.


The only L-Point where the gravity vectors pull in opposite directions is L1. And here the central body (Pluto) pulls harder than Charon. These two gravities don't balance out.

L3 and L2

Zooming in on the L3 and L2 points, we can see both bodies pull the same direction. These don't balance.

L4 and L5

Zooming in on the L4 and L5 points. Pluto pulls much harder. The angle between these vectors is 60º

The So-Called Centrifugal Force

There is a third player in these Lagrange tug of wars. What we used to call centrifugal force. This is not truly a force but rather inertia in a rotating frame. Here is an XKCD cartoon on this so called force:

Indeed, in a rotating frame, inertia sure feels like a force. The pseudo acceleration can be described as ω2r where ω is angular velocity in radians per time and r is distance from center of rotation. The vector points away from the center of rotation.

Putting Gravity and Centrifugal Force Together

Here's the same diagram but with centrifugal force thrown in (the blue vectors). Also the foot of the Charon gravity vectors are placed on the head of the Pluto gravity vectors -- this is a visual way to carry out vector addition.

For L1, Charon and Centrifugal Force are on the same team and they perfectly balance Pluto's gravity.

For both L2 and L3, Pluto and Charon are on the same team and they neutralize their opponent Centrifugal Force.

But what about L4 and L5? An observant reader may notice that the centrifugal force vector doesn't point away from Pluto's center. Adding Charon's tug to Pluto's tug moves the direction to the side a little bit.

Now the centrifugal force vector points from the barycenter. This is the common point of rotation around which both Pluto and Charon rotate. The same applies to L5.

L4, Charon's center and Pluto's center form an equilateral triangle.
The barycenter lies on the corner of a non-equilateral triangle.

And so it is with all the orbiting systems in our neighborhood. It is a 3 way way tug-of-war between centrifugal force, gravity of the orbiting body and gravity of the central body. Sometimes two players are on the same team, other places they switch. In L4 and L5 everyone pulls in a different direction. But in all 5 Lagrange points, the sum of the three accelerations is zero.

Thursday, September 15, 2016


Xenon The Noble Gas

Xenon is one of heavier Noble Gases

Screen capture from


Low Ionization Energy






Big Atoms, Molar Weight











Where xenon excels

Great for moving between heliocentric orbits




Sucks for climbing in and out of planetary gravity wells



Mark Adler's rendition of an ion spiral








Elevators and chemical for planet wells, ion for heliocentric


Other possible sources of ion propellent.


Saturday, September 10, 2016

General template for space elevators

A Family of Conic Sections






Here is the same graphic zoomed in:


Scaling this graphic for a variety of scenarios:



r = (Gm / ω2)1/3


Orbital Elevators





Eccentricity of the common ellipse:


Periapsis and apoapsis of the common ellipse:

rperiapsis = (1 + e)1/3 rPhobos
rapoapsis = (1 - e)1/3 rDeimos


Here's a pic of the ellipse Phobos and Deimos share:




Not just Phobos and Deimos


Here are the common ellipses between the moons of Saturn:


Mini Solar Systems






Icey moons with hospitable interiors.


Planets of red dwarfs


Delta V and the rocket equation








Saturday, August 27, 2016

Pluto Charon Elevator

Double Tidal Locking

Pluto and Charon are mutually tidally locked. That is, they both present the same face to the other planet all the time. They hover motionless in each other's sky. Pluto is in Charon synchronous orbit and Charon is in Pluto synchronous orbit.

(Thank you to Dr. Kirby Runyon for pointing me to this paper).

A tether could be extended from Pluto's near point to Charon's near point. Since the orbit is so nearly circular and obliquity is tiny, there would very very little flexing of this tether.

Minimum Tether to Remain Aloft

To remain aloft, a tether anchored to Charon would need to extend past the L1 point more than 10,000 kilometers to within nearly 2,500 kilometers of Pluto's surface.

This tether would be more than 15,000 kilometers long. Using Wolfe's Spreadsheet we find Zylon taper ratio is 1.13. Tether to Payload mass ratio is .88. This is with a safety factor of 3.

All The Way To Pluto

Extending the tether an additional 2,500 kilometers anchors it to Pluto's surface.

Taper ratio is about 1.7 and Tether to Payload mass ratio is 14.36.

Still acceptable but dramatically different from a tether only 2,500 shorter. This is because we dropped the tether foot into a much steeper part of Pluto's gravity well.

Net acceleration is .62 meters/second2 at the Pluto end of the elevator. Very close to Pluto's surface gravity. At the Charon anchor net acceleration is -.28 meters/second2. Very close to Charon's surface gravity. It is negative to indicate it's in the opposite direction from Pluto's gravity.

At L1 net acceleration is zero.

It's easy to see most of the stress newtons come from the close neighborhoods of Pluto or Charon. It might be worthwhile to build standard compressive towers at the elevator anchor points.

What's The Point?

Pluto's surface escape velocity is 1.2 km/s. Charon's surface escape velocity is .6 km/s. It's not that hard to get off the surface of Pluto or Charon. So what's the point of an elevator?

Space craft with very good ISP have meager thrust. With such space craft soft landings on Pluto or Charon would not be possible. Nor could they leave the surface of these planets.

But a low thrust craft could dock with the elevator at L1.

From L1 a small nudge could send passengers or cargo towards Pluto or Charon. And gravity would pull it the rest of the way down.

I believe Pluto Charon L1 would become  a major metropolis on the corridor between two major city states as well as a port to the rest of the solar system.

Will humans reach Pluto?

The Edge of Sunlight

Sunlight falls with inverse square of distance from sun. Asteroids 3 A.U. from from the sun will receive 1/9 of the insolation we enjoy on earth. Sun Jupiter Trojans at 5 A.U. will get 1/25 the sunlight. We could compensate by constructing large parabolic mirrors to harvest sunlight.

Giant parabolic mirrors could harvest sunlight for spin habs.

But Pluto  has a 30 A.U. by 49 A.U. orbit. And most of the time it dwells in the neighborhood of aphelion. 1/492 = about 1/2400. Mirrors for the KBO nation states would need to be vast. Mike Combs wrote a neat story featuring these sorts of mega mirrors. As much as I enjoy Mike's story, I don't think such monster mirrors are practical.

Fusion Power?

Will our technology achieve practical fusion power plants? Maybe. If so, that would vastly expand our possible frontiers.

The 4th Space Frontier

There's nothing like logistic growth ceilings to motivate opening a new frontier. As we settle and fill up one frontier, we start looking over the horizon. I'm going to make some wildly speculative predictions. This is a science fiction blog, after all.

1st space frontier: NEAs, Luna, Mars, Phobos and Deimos. This would give us one or two millennia of unrestrained growth.

2nd space frontier: The Main Belt. Three millennia of exponential growth. Ceres will be the capital of this United Federation of Main Belt Nation States. This frontier will open within a century or two after we establish a strong foothold on Mars/Phobos/Deimos.

3rd space frontier: The Sun Jupiter Trojans. The Hildas will be our ride from the Main Belt to the Trojans. It will take five hundred years to fill the Trojan petri dish.

4th space frontier: The Kuiper Belt as well as the icey moons of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. As mentioned earlier, this would require practical power sources other than sunlight. Pluto will be the capital of the United Federation of Kuiper Belt Nation States. This frontier will take 10 millennia to expand into.

5th space frontier: The Oort. The nation states of the Oort will be separated by vast distances. They will be more isolated than even the nation states of the Kuiper. There is a strong incentive to become less reliant on trade and more self sufficient. 20 millennia of unrestrained growth. By the time we reach the outer Oort, nation states will be self sufficient biomes. There would be nothing preventing an outer Oort nation state from achieving solar escape velocity and leaving our sun's sphere of influence.

The Outer Oort Nation States will be natural generation star ships.

Charon Elevator through L2

Enough wild eyed fantasy. Back to mundane stuff like space elevators in the Kuiper Belt.

To maintain tension and remain , an elevator from Charon's far point through the Pluto Charon L2 would need to extend 41,000 kilometers. With a safety factor of 3, Zylon taper ratio would be 1.14. Tether to Payload mass ratio would be  about .3.

Small Problem: Styx

Pluto's moon Styx orbits at a distance of 42,600 kilometers from Pluto. Charon orbits at about 20,000 kilometers from Pluto. So a tether from Charon's far point can only extend about 22,000 kilometers before it runs the risk of an impact with Styx.

A counterweight would need to be placed on the elevator somewhere below the orbit of Styx. If placed just below the orbit of Styx, the tether top could impart a velocity of about .5 km/s. Which would be helpful for injection into heliocentric transfer orbits to other destinations in the solar system.

This elevator could also help with transportation between Charon and the other moons of Pluto: Styx, Nix, Kerboros and Hydra. 

An ion craft could also dock with Pluto Charon L2, so L2 could also serve as a port to the rest of the solar system. There are heteroclinic paths between L1 and L2 so transportation between the two elevators would be easy.

Pluto And I Share An Annivesary

Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto on February 18, 1930. February 18 is my birthday! So I guess it's only natural I'm interested in this body, we're practically twins.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Tran Cislunar Railroad

Three Orbital Tethers



The location of these vertical tethers avoids zones of orbital debris:


Dead Sats for tether anchors





Super GEO tether


A Space Stack Exchange answer estimates there are 670 tonnes of dead sats in the geosynch graveyard orbit. Here is a page that tries to estimate total mass in earth orbit.


Upper Super GEO Tether, 10,340 km long
Safety Factor 3
Zylon taper ratio: 1.38
Tether to payload mass ratio: .78
Tether top radius 62,504 km
Tether top speed: 3.3 km/s
Payload apogee: 384,400 km
Payload apogee speed: .53 km/s


Lower Super GEO tether, 7,100 km long
Safety Factor 3
Zylon taper ratio: 1.21
Tether to payload mass ratio: .47
Tether foot distance from earth 45,000 km
Tether foot speed: 2.4 km/s
Payload perigee: 21,450 km
Payload perigee speed: 5 km/s


Sub MEO Tether


Upper Sub MEO Tether, 2,050 km long
Safety Factor 3
Zylon taper ratio: 1.30
Tether to payload mass ratio: .61
Tether top distance from earth 21,450 km
Tether top speed: 5 km/s
Payload apogee: 45,000 km
Payload apogee speed: 2.4 km/s


Lower Sub MEO tether.
Safety Factor 3
Zylon taper ratio: 1.35
Tether to payload mass ratio: .78
Tether foot radius 17,375 km
Tether foot speed: 4.1 km/s
Payload perigee: 9,680 km
Payload perigee speed: 7.3 km/s


Super LEO Tether


Upper Super LEO Tether, 765 km long
Safety Factor 3
Zylon taper ratio: 1.4
Tether to payload mass ratio: .84
Tether top radius 10,065 km
Tether top speed: 7.1 km/s
Payload apogee: 17375 km
Payload apogee speed: 4.1 km/s


Lower Super LEO tether, 450 km long
Safety Factor 3
Zylon taper ratio: 1.13
Tether to payload mass ratio: .29
Tether foot distance from earth 8,844 km
Tether foot speed: 6.2 km/s
Payload perigee: 6,778 km
Payload perigee speed: 8.3 km/s



Total Tether Mass to Payload Ratio


Tether Mass to Payload Mass Ratios & Lengths

Length (km)
Upper Super GEO
Lower Super GEO
Upper Sub MEO
Lower Sub MEO
Upper Super LEO
Lower Super LEO



Facilitating Momentum Exchange

Using Hall Thrusters to restore momentum.


Plugging these numbers into the rocket equation:



Lunar or NEA propellent as a source of up momentum.




Jon Goff's gear ratios




Breaking the Genie's Bottle


Monday, August 8, 2016

Lunar Sky Hook

Kim Holder has been urging me to do this blog post. Her comments in various forums have been helpful in thinking about this.

Vertical Lunar Tether In A Polar Orbit

This sky hook is a gravity gradient stabilized vertical tether. It's in a polar orbit so it will pass over the poles as well as the lower lunar latitudes.

Unlike an equatorial orbit, there are only two occasions during a lunar orbit where a tether's Vinf velocity vector is anti-parallel to the moon's velocity vector. So launch windows to earth would only occur each two weeks. That's still pretty often. These occasions are also good times to rendezvous with the tether.

Playing with earth moon three body simulations, polar orbits seem to remain stable up to a radius of around 20,000 kilometers. That is where I will set the anchor mass at the balance point of this sky hook. I believe this is far enough above the lunar surface that the mascons won't damage this tether's orbit.

Asteroid Anchor Mass Via a Keck vehicle

What to use for the anchor mass? With the asteroid retrieval vehicle proposed in the Keck Report, it is possible for a vehicle of moderate mass to retrieve a much larger mass to the earth moon neighborhood. The Keck authors believe a rock could be placed in high lunar orbit for around .17 km/s. A lunar orbit with a 20,000 km radius has a speed of around .5 km/s. I believe it would take around .7 km/s to park a rock in the orbit we want.

The Keck vehicle includes solar panel arrays and Hall ion thrusters. These would be great to have on a vertical tether. It takes awhile for ion engines to impart momentum, but given time they're about ten times as efficient as the best chemical rockets. A tether can build up momentum over time but release it suddenly. Thus they are a good way to enjoy an ion engine's great ISP and an Oberth benefit.

As well as adjusting the tether's orbit the Keck vehicle's solar arrays might also power elevator cars moving up and down the tether. If water is exported from from the lunar cold traps to the tether, the arrays might also crack water into oxygen and hydrogen bipropellent. There are a number of possible uses for this power source.

Upper Tether

The tether length above the anchor mass can be built in increments. I imagine the tether growing longer and more able with time. Here are three possible stages:

To EML2 or EML1

EML1 and 2 are about 65,000 km from the moon. To reach this apolune, we'd need an upper tether length of about 2700 kilometers. Using Wolfe's spread sheet, this tether length has a taper ratio of 1. With a safety factor to 3, tether mass to payload ratio is about .02.

This is pretty good. I believe this low stress tether length could accommodate copper wires to transmit power to the elevator cars.

Once at apolune, I believe it would take about .3 km/s to park the payload at EML2 or EML1.

EML2 is a good staging location should we want to travel to and from destinations beyond the earth-moon neighborhood.

To a Perigee at Geosynchronous Orbit 

Transfer orbit from GEO to the moon is about a an ~36,000 x 378,000 ellipse. Apogee speed is about .45 km/s. The moon's speed is about 1.02 km/s. So the tether needs to hurl a payload to a Vinf of (1.02-.45) km/s or about .57 km/s.

To achieve this Vinf our tether needs to be 12,200 km. Zylon taper ratio is 1.09. With a safety factor of three, Tether to payload mass ratio is about .167. So a ten tonne tether could accommodate a sixty tonne payload. This is still pretty good. A power cable along this length is also doable.

Perigee velocity of our transfer orbit is ~4.13 km/s. Geosynch orbit velocity is ~3.07 km/s. If the transfer orbit and destination geosynch orbit are coplanar, geosynch circularization would be about 1.06 km/s. But I expect that would be the exception rather than the rule. If the orbit inclinations differ by 20º, 1.6 km/s would be needed to park in geosynch.

To a Perigee at Low Earth Orbit.

A 300 x 378,000 km orbit has apogee velocity of ~.19 km/s. (1.02 - .19) km/s = .83 km/s.

To throw a payload to a trans earth orbit, our tether needs to impart a Vinf of .83 km/s. This takes a tether length of 19,200 kilometers. With a safety factor of three, Zylon taper ratio is 1.2. Tether to payload mass ratio is .38.

If perigee is through earth's upper atmosphere, aerobraking can provide a large part of the 3.1 km/s delta V for circularizing at LEO.

Lower Tether

Again, the tether length below the anchor mass can be built in increments. Incremental growth with time is more doable than trying to do the whole length in fell swoop. Here are some possible steps along the way.

To a Perilune at Low Lunar Orbit.

To drop a payload to a 90 km altitude perilune, length needs to be 7360 km. Given a safety factor of 3, Zylon taper ratio is 1.06. Tether to payload mass ratio is .15.

Velocity of transfer orbit's perilune is about 2.2 km/s. Low lunar orbit is about 1.6 km/s. It'd take about .6 km/s to circularize at low lunar orbit. 

To the Moon's Surface, Impact Velocity 1 km/s.

If the tether is extended to a length of 17890 km, tether foot altitude is about 370 km. Dropping a payload from this tether foot would result in a 1 km/s impact. 

Given a safety factor of two, Zylon taper ratio is 2.88. Tether to payload mass ratio is 26.87.

Note the safety factor is less than in the other scenarios. As we descend further into the moon's gravity well, stress climbs more rapidly. It would be more difficult to include copper wires for power along the lower parts of the tether.

To a Tether Foot Just Above the Moon's Surface.

Dropping the tether foot to an altitude of 10 kilometers gives us a length of 18,252 km. Safety factor of 2 and Zylon taper ratio is 3.72. Tether to payload mass ratio is  about 51.

Dropping from this tether foot, a payload would impact the lunar surface at .184 km/s. 

A .2 km/s payload delta V budget for soft landing seems quite doable. Likewise it would take about .2 km/s to launch a payload from the lunar to rendezvous with the tether foot.

However dropping the tether foot this far is considerably more ambitious than the other scenarios described above.

Travel About The Moon

Kim Holder noted such a tether might serve as transportation between locations on the moon.

Without a tether, going from pole to pole would take about 3.4 km/s: 1.7 km/s to launch and another 1.7 for soft landing. Going from equator to pole would take 1.53 km/s to launch and another 1.53 km/s for a soft landing, totaling 3.06 km/s. 

So a 18,000 km lower lunar tether length would make travel about the moon easier.

A Location to Process Asteroid Ore

It takes about .6 km/s to park ore from some of the more accessible asteroids in 20,000 km lunar orbit. If rendezvous with the tether top is doable, it could take considerably less.

I envision infrastructure accreting about the tether anchor mass 18,262 km above the lunar surface. Water, platinum, gold, rare earth metals, and other materials could be extracted at the anchor. Refined commodities could climb to the top of the tether and then tossed earthward.

A Synergy Between The Moon and Near Earth Asteroids

Moon and asteroid enthusiasts are often at odds with one another. They should be allies. In terms of delta V, it's a lot easier to park asteroids in lunar orbit than lower earth orbits. And given growing infrastructure in lunar orbit, the moon's surface becomes more accessible.

Friday, July 22, 2016

Hildas As Cyclers

Hilda Asteroids - Red,   Sun Jupiter Trojans - Blue,   Main Belt - Green

The above image was made from screen captures of Scott Manley's beautiful animation Asteroids In Resonance With Jupiter.

Jupiter is the dot off to the left, the sun is the yellow dot in the middle. Within the Main Belt can be seen Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. I colored the different asteroid populations so we can tell them apart.

The Sun Jupiter Trojans have a 1 to 1 resonance with Jupiter. They co-rotate with Jupiter. The leading Trojans remain in a neighborhood 60 degrees ahead of Jupiter and the trailing Trojans stay in a neighborhood 60 degrees behind.

The Hildas have have 3 to 2 resonance with Jupiter meaning they circle the sun three times for every two Jupiter orbits. Jupiter's orbital period is about 12 years and the Hildas have 8 year periods.

The Hilda orbits only look triangular in Manley's animation because they're being viewed in a rotating frame. You can see Jupiter remains on the left side of the image. In an inertial frame, a Hilda orbit is an ordinary elliptical orbit with aphelion passing through the Trojans and perihelion passing through the main belt.

I envision the Hilda biomes playing a similar role as Marco Polo's caravans shuttling people and goods between east and west. But the Hildas travel between the Trojans and the Main Belt.

The would be a series of regular fly bys for a Hilda Cycler

1) Main Belt to trailing Trojans — 4 years.
2) Trailing Trojans to Main Belt — 4 years.
3) Main Belt to leading Trojans — 4 years
4) Leading Trojans to Main Belt — 4 years
5) Main Belt to Sun Jupiter L3 — 4 years. But there is no asteroid population at SJL3.
6) From SJL3 to Main Belt 4 years

Then back to step 1). The cycle repeats itself.

So not only can a Hilda be a go between between the Main Belt and Trojans, but it can also move stuff between the trailing and leading Trojan populations. Trailing to leading takes 8 years and leading to trailing takes 16 years.

As can be seen from Manley's animation, there is a steady stream of Hildas traveling the circuit. 

Delta V

The Hildas have a variety of eccentricities. I will look at a Hilda orbit having an eccentricity of .31. That would put the aphelion at 5.2 A.U. and the perihelion at 2.74 A.U. (The perihelion is in Ceres' neighborhood, Ceres' semi-major axis is 2.77 A.U.).

Assuming a circular, coplanar orbit at 2.74 A.U.,  it would take 2.6 km/s to leave a Main Belt Asteroid and board a Hilda.

Assuming a circular, coplanar orbit at 5.2 A.U., it would take 2.2 km/s to depart the Hilda and rendezvous with a Trojan.

However, coplanar orbits is a very optimistic assumption. Asteroids have a large variety of inclinations. Making a 10 degree plane change from a Hilda's orbit can cost 2 to 3 km/s.

Ways to mitigate delta V expense

Many asteroids spin about pretty fast. This plus their shallow gravity wells make them amenable to bean stalks, also known as space elevators. 

"Why would an asteroid need a space elevator?" I'm sometimes asked. The questioner will assert "It's very easy to get off an asteroid's surface, and getting off the body's surface is the only reason for an elevator." Which is wrong, of course.

Speed of a body on an elevator is ωr where ω is angular velocity in radians per time unit and r is distance from center of rotation. If r is large, the elevator can fling a payload at high velocity with regard to the asteroid. It is quite plausible for an asteroid's bean stalk to provide .5 to 1 km/s delta V.

Also an asteroid bean stalk allows rendezvous with an ion propelled space craft. Ion ships have great ISP but minute thrust. Soft landings with an ion craft are not possible on larger asteroids like Ceres, or Vesta.

And ion propelled ships are more viable in the outer system. When a ship's acceleration is a large fraction of the local gravity acceleration, an ion burn is more like a chemical impulsive burn. See General Guidelines for Modeling a Low Thrust Ion Spiral. In the outer Main Belt, the sun's gravity is about 1 millimeter/sec2. Sun's gravity at the Trojans is about .2 millimeters/sec2.

Jupiter's Trojans

Not much is known about Jupiter's Trojans. Japan hopes to launch a mission in the early 2020's. Another proposed mission is Lucy which would also launch in the early 2020's. 

These bodies are on average 5.2 A.U. from the sun and so receive only 1/27 the sunlight earth enjoys. For this reason I am hopeful they are rich in volatile ices. I'd give better than even odds they have lots of water and carbon dioxide ice. Nitrogen compounds like ammonia and cyano compounds are a possibility. Aside from earth, Nitrogen is in short supply throughout the inner solar system and these would be a great export to the Main Belt biomes.

Their numbers are speculation. According to Wikipedia:

Estimates of the total number of Jupiter trojans are based on deep surveys of limited areas of the sky.[1] The L4 swarm is believed to hold between 160–240,000 asteroids with diameters larger than 2 km and about 600,000 with diameters larger than 1 km. If the L5 swarm contains a comparable number of objects, there are more than 1 million Jupiter trojans 1 km in size or larger. For the objects brighter than absolute magnitude 9.0 the population is probably complete. These numbers are similar to that of comparable asteroids in the asteroid belt. The total mass of the Jupiter trojans is estimated at 0.0001 of the mass of Earth or one-fifth of the mass of the asteroid belt.
Two more recent studies indicate, however, that the above numbers may overestimate the number of Jupiter trojans by several-fold. This overestimate is caused by (1) the assumption that all Jupiter trojans have a low albedo of about 0.04, whereas small bodies may actually have an average albedo as high as 0.12;[16] (2) an incorrect assumption about the distribution of Jupiter trojans in the sky. According to the new estimates, the total number of Jupiter trojans with a diameter larger than 2 km is 6.3 ± 1.0×104 and 3.4 ± 0.5×104 in the L4 and L5swarms, respectively. These numbers would be reduced by a factor of 2 if small Jupiter trojans are more reflective than large ones.[16]
The number of Jupiter trojans observed in the L4 swarm is slightly larger than that observed in L5. However, because the brightest Jupiter trojans show little variation in numbers between the two populations, this disparity is probably due to observational bias. However, some models indicate that the L4 swarm may be slightly more stable than the L5 swarm. 
The largest Jupiter trojan is 624 Hektor, which has an average diameter of 203 ± 3.6 km. There are few large Jupiter trojans in comparison to the overall population. With decreasing size, the number of Jupiter trojans grows very quickly down to 84 km, much more so than in the asteroid belt. A diameter of 84 km corresponds to an absolute magnitude of 9.5, assuming an albedo of 0.04. Within the 4.4–40 km range the Jupiter trojans' size distribution resembles that of the main-belt asteroids. An absence of data means that nothing is known about the masses of the smaller Jupiter trojans. The size distribution suggests that the smaller Trojans are the products of collisions by larger Jupiter trojans.

I'd love to see science fiction stores set on 624 Hektor.

This article written in memory of Hilda Alvarez May 5, 1929 - July 20, 2016