The origin of the Jupiter Trojan asteroids has long been a mystery. Dynamically, the population, which is considerably smaller than the main asteroid belt, librates around Jupiter’s stable L4 and L5 Lagrange points, 60 deg ahead and behind Jupiter. It is thought that these bodies were captured into these orbits early in solar system history, but any capture mechanism must also explain why the Trojans have an excited inclination distribution, with some objects reaching inclinations of 35°. The Trojans themselves, individually and in aggregate, also have spectral and physical properties that appear consistent with many small bodies found in the outer solar system (e.g., irregular satellites, Kuiper belt objects). In this review, we assemble what is known about the Trojans and discuss various models for their origin and collisional evolution. It can be argued that the Trojans are unlikely to be captured planetesimals from the giant planet zone, but instead were once denizens of the primordial Kuiper belt, trapped by the events taking place during a giant planet instability. The Lucy mission to the Trojans is therefore well positioned to not only answer questions about these objects, but also about their place in planet formation and solar system evolution studies.

木星特洛伊小行星的起源长期以来一直是个谜。从动态上看，该行星群比主小行星带小得多，围绕木星稳定的 L4 和 L5 拉格朗日点进行平动，前后各 60 度。人们认为这些天体在太阳系历史的早期就被捕获进入这些轨道，但任何捕获机制也必须解释为什么特洛伊木马具有激发的倾角分布，其中一些物体的倾角达到 35°。特洛伊木马本身，无论是单独的还是总体的，也具有与太阳系外发现的许多小天体（例如不规则卫星、柯伊伯带天体）一致的光谱和物理特性。在这篇评论中，我们汇总了有关特洛伊木马的已知信息，并讨论了其起源和碰撞进化的各种模型。可以说，特洛伊人不太可能是从巨行星带捕获的星子，而是曾经是原始柯伊伯带的居民，被巨行星不稳定期间发生的事件所困。因此，露西号前往特洛伊的任务不仅可以回答有关这些物体的问题，还可以回答它们在行星形成和太阳系演化研究中的地位。