NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
A little moon, for a while
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2007 Apr 18, 00:42 EDT
See what's free at AOL.com.
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From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2007 Apr 18, 00:42 EDT
According to an article on the Sky & Telescope web site, the Earth has
acquired a little moonlet:
It's about 31 magnitude fainter than the Earth's (primary) Moon, so you may
need binoculars to see it... really, really big binoculars. <g>
As noted in the article, there is a significant possibility that this is
space junk rather than a natural "rock". A similar case occurred about
five years ago when an SIV-B (Saturn third stage) from one of the US moon
landing missions came home for a while, orbiting the Earth at trans-lunar range,
until wandering away into heliocentric orbit again. Since the new object appears
to be unaffected by light pressure, it must be relatively dense, unlike the
earlier Saturn rocket stage.
-FER
42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N 72.1W.
www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars
42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N 72.1W.
www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars
See what's free at AOL.com.
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To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com
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