Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Thursday February 27 2020, @04:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the mini-moon dept.

New Temporary Moon in Earth Orbit

On February 15th 2020 a magnitude 20 object designated 2020 CD3 was observed and projected to be in a 47 day elliptical orbit of the Earth. Projections do not all agree yet, but the orbit is believed to be unstable and should not last more than about 3 years. 2020 CD3 is estimated to be between 1 and 6 meters in diameter, though reportage varies wildly on the size estimates. Nobody seems to be commenting on perigee, though the simulation images suggest it is approximately at lunar orbit distance - of course with the 47 day period apogee is well beyond lunar orbit.

This is only the second "captured asteroid" to be observed in Earth orbit, 2006 RH120 was observed to be in Earth orbit from September 2006 to June 2007 - although 1991 VG was weakly captured for a month in 1992 and is expected to return in the future.

Many stories have already been published elsewhere - Wikipedia has already been updated; but, nobody seems to be asking the important questions like: if Pluto can be disqualified as a planet, how can 2020 CD3 be called a moon? ;-) EarthSky was unable to be consulted, perhaps due to the traffic spike, but other astronomers have referred to the object as a TCO - Temporarily Captured Object, while some question if 2020 CD3 is in fact an artificial object like a spent Apollo era booster stage.

Earth has a new mini-moon -- but it's only temporary

"Earth has captured a tiny object and pulled it into orbit.
The asteroid, known as 2020 CD3, is only the second asteroid known to orbit Earth. And while it won't last, this asteroid acts as a temporary mini-moon whirling around our planet."

--The article doesn't expand on why its' orbit is only temporary so I can only imagine that its' orbit is not stable for....reasons.

"In this case, they found a natural satellite that was pulled into Earth's orbit three years ago. "

The article does not say WHEN the orbit may end and... will likely be pulled into collision vector with Earth?

"The asteroid is likely between 6.2 feet and 11.4 feet in diameter, the researchers said on Twitter."

VERY mini-me!

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/26/world/earth-mini-moon-asteroid-scn-trnd/index.html


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by mcgrew on Thursday February 27 2020, @02:40PM (1 child)

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Thursday February 27 2020, @02:40PM (#963496) Homepage Journal

    "Noone" is not a word, it's a typo caused by not hitting the space bar hard enough between the words "no" and "one". Unfortunately, it's likely my fault that people think it's a word, since I seldom if ever proofread or edited what I wrote on my popular Quake site two decades ago. I did proofread when I put selections in Random Scribblings and was horrified at the number of typos I found.

    --
    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Funny=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Funny' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Thursday February 27 2020, @02:49PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday February 27 2020, @02:49PM (#963501) Journal

    editeered

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]