588 Achilles is an
asteroid discovered on
February 22,
1906 by the German astronomer
Max Wolf. It was the first of the
Trojan asteroids to be discovered, and is named after
Achilles, the fictional hero from the
Iliad. It orbits in the L
4 Lagrangian point of the
Sun-
Jupiter system. After a few such asteroids were discovered, the rule was established that the L
4 point was the "
Greek camp", while the L
5 point was the "
Trojan camp", though not before each camp had acquired a "spy" (
624 Hektor in the Greek camp and
617 Patroclus in the Trojan camp).
External links