One of five locations in space between two bodies where the centrifugal and gravitational forces of the two bodies neutralize each other; a third, less massive body located at any one of these points will be held in equilibrium with respect to the other two. Three of the points, L1–L3, lie on a line joining the two large bodies. The other two points, L4 and L5, which are the most stable, lie on either side of this line. For example, there is a Lagrangian point between the Earth and the Sun 1.5 million km from the Earth. Here the Sun's gravity and the Earth's gravity are equal, meaning that a spacecraft can orbit the point as if it were a planet. The points were discovered by the eighteenth-century Italian-born French mathematician Joseph Lagrange.