NASA has just declared that Earth appears to
have a second moon that has been orbiting around our planet for nearly a
century.
This second moon doesn’t quite resemble the
one we’re used to seeing in the starry night sky, however. Actually an
asteroid, it has been discovered in an orbit around the sun that keeps it as a
constant companion of Earth, and will continue to do so for centuries.
This new asteroid, called 2016 HO3, is too
distant to be considered a true satellite of our planet, but is the best and most
stable example of a near-Earth companion we’ve yet to come across.
“Since 2016 HO3 loops around our planet, but
never ventures very far away as we both go around the sun, we refer to it as a
quasi-satellite of Earth,”explained Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Center for
Near-Earth Object (NEO) Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
California.
“One other asteroid — 2003 YN107 — followed a
similar orbital pattern for a while over 10 years ago, but it has since
departed our vicinity.
This new asteroid is much more locked onto
us. Our calculations indicate 2016 HO3 has been a stable quasi-satellite of
Earth for almost a century, and it will continue to follow this pattern as
Earth’s companion for centuries to come”
This second “moon,” discovered by the
Pan-STARRS 1 asteroid survey telescope located in Haleakala, Hawaii, is tilted
at eight degrees, which is considered to be highly elliptical.
This makes it able to travel within the
ranges of 38 to 100 times the distance of our “first moon.”
The asteroid makes its way around the sun for
365.93 days, slightly longer than Earth’s 365.24. It spans about 40 meters
across and is about 100 meters wide.
Expected to never get closer than about 14 million kilometers from
Earth, scientists believe 2016 HO3 will never stray off its course more than 40
million kilometers.
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