Way back in July of 2011 I clipped an article from the Associated Press on an asteroid that runs ahead of Earth as the planet rolls around the sun. At the end of the short article was this sentence which caught my eye and imagination: "Asteroids are giant space rocks that orbit the sun, and ones that share an orbit with a planet are called Trojans."
Hmmm...now why would asteroids orbiting with planets be called Trojans? A quick trip around the internet, and I discovered that two groups of asteroids circling with the planet Jupiter were given names of soldiers who fought in the Trojan war, one group of Trojan soldiers and one group of Greek warriors. Now asteroids orbiting with any planet go by the name of Trojans. Astronomers are so inventive, but apparently not always correct. Check out the two naming mistakes, one in each of the camps, here.
One more thing: the ending -oid on the word asteroid is a good Greek root to know. Related to the word eidos meaning "form,"-oid means "resembling, like." Words containing this Greek root include anthropoid, celluloid, humanoid, android, etc. An asteroid resembles a star, from the Greek aster meaning "star," source of, among other words, our English asterisk, astrolabe, astronaut, and astronomy.
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