Until now a tiny asteroid had secretly and silently run ahead of Earth on the planet's stroll around the Sun.
But scientists have found that for the coming hundreds of years we are certain not to only have the Moon for company on the year-long journey.
The discovery of this companion, known as Trojan 2010 TK7, which measures only about 300 yards across, makes Earth the fourth planet in the solar system that is known to share its orbit with an asteroid.
Not alone: This artist's impression by NASA shows the trojan leading the Earth, and its extreme orbit around our planet is shown in green. Earth's orbit around the sun is indicated by blue dots
It well never get closer than 50-times the distance the moon sits from the us.
Currently, it is about 50 million miles away, and should come no closer than about 18 million miles.
'These objects are difficult to find from Earth, simply because they're not very big and they're pretty faint, and they're close to the Sun as seen from Earth,' explained Christian Veillet from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and a co-author on the Nature study.
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