Central configurations of the planar coorbitalsatellite problem

We study the planar central configurations of the 1 + n body problem where one mass is large and the other n masses are infinitesimal and equal. We find analytically all these central configurations when 2≤n≤4. Numerically, first we provide evidence that when n9 the only central configuration is the regular n-gon with the large mass in its barycenter, and second we provide also evidence of the existence of an axis of symmetry for every central configuration. © 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers.