New Moon

[WitchBoy]

An amateur astronomer may have found another moon of the Earth. Experts say it may have only just arrived.
Much uncertainty surrounds the mysterious object, designated J002E3. It could be a passing chunk of rock captured by the Earth's gravity, or it could be a discarded rocket casing coming back to our region of space.

It was discovered by Bill Yeung, from his observatory in Arizona, US, and reported as a passing Near-Earth Object.

It was soon realised, however, that far from passing us, it was in fact in a 50-day orbit around the Earth.

Paul Chodas, of the American space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, says it must have just arrived or it would have been easily detected long ago.

Calculations suggest it may have been captured earlier this year.

When he detected the object, Bill Yeung contacted the Minor Planet Center in Massachusetts, the clearing house for such discoveries, which gave it the designation J002E3 and posted it on their Near-Earth Object Confirmation webpage.

Soon, however, the object's motion suggested it was in an orbit around the Earth. Its movements had all the hallmarks of being a spent rocket casing or other piece of space junk.

But experts are not completely sure what exactly the object is.

Observations made by Tony Beresford in Australia indicate that the object's position does not match any known piece of space junk.

Observations made in Europe have failed to see any variations in brightness that might be expected from a slowly spinning metallic object.

Paul Chodas says the object must have arrived quite recently or else it would have been easily detected by any of several automated sky surveys that astronomers are conducting.

Its trajectory suggests that it may have been captured in April or May of this year, but there is still some uncertainty about this.

If it is determined that J002E3 is natural it will become Earth's third natural satellite.

Earth's second one is called Cruithne. It was discovered in 1986 and it takes a convoluted horseshoe path around our planet as it is tossed about by the Earth's and the Moon's gravity.

[Nemesis]

cewl
I knew about the 2nd moon.. but another one..
do you think it would affect the tides on earth, like our 'normal' moon does? Or do ye think its thát small (what it is.. ) and too far away that it wont have any effect on Earth

[Nemesis]

(CNN) -- An object recently detected in a chaotic Earth orbit is possibly a section from one the largest rockets ever built, a NASA monster taller than a football field that carried men to the moon, scientists said.

An earlier Saturn 5 third-stage, seen from the Apollo 8 spacecraft shortly after separation near the moon in 1968

When amateur astronomer Bill Yeung from Arizona spotted the object last week, space enthusiasts speculated that it might be a natural Earth satellite.

The reason, the mysterious rambler travels in a jumbled ellipse around the Earth that reaches far beyond the moon, suggesting our planet's gravity captured a wandering space rock.

But calculations by the Minor Planet Center in Massachusetts, a clearinghouse for minor planet and comet discoveries, "immediately led astronomers to suspect the object is actually a spacecraft or rocket body, not an asteroid," said NASA's Paul Chodas in a statement on Wednesday.

There was one caveat. Chodas, a research scientist with the space agency's Near Earth Program Office in California, which monitors potentially hazardous space boulders, noted that the object "could not be associated with any recent launch."

Dubbed J002E3, the enigma could be the third-stage of a Saturn V rocket, which took Apollo astronauts to the moon from 1969 to 1972, Chodas said.

If so, why did the big scrap of metal remain undetected for so long? It probably escaped Earth's gravitational influence for years, according to NASA.

"J002E3 is the first known case of an object being captured by the Earth," Chodas said.

NASA astronomers theorize that J002E3 drifted into orbit around the sun, then fell back under our planet's gravitational spell earlier this year, having passed through one of numerous LaGrange points, or "portals" in space where the sun's gravity and that of the Earth cancel the other out.

"Jupiter has been known to capture comets via the same mechanism," said Choda, giving the example of Shoemaker-Levy, which broke up and collided in spectacular fashion in the giant planet in 1994.

Circumstantial evidence, including reflective brightness, suggests that the object came from the Apollo 12 mission, which flew to the moon in November 1969.

The object could make another mark in astronomy. Orbiting Earth roughly once every 43 days, it has a 20 percent chance of striking the moon in 2003 and a 2 percent chance of hitting the Earth within the decade.

"This should not be of concern to the public. Apollo stages have impacted the Earth before," Choda said.


ORBIT ANIMATION Watch how Earth captured J002E3 and shaped its current chaotic orbit.

[Teej]

So wait, it was just an old space ship part??



Teej

[Nemesis]

yeah.. it probably was and it got 5% chance of hitting earth, and a 20% chance of hitting the moon. No need to worry, this happens all the time with spacejunk.