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Earth Acquires a Quasi-Moon

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the can-we-keep-it? dept.

richard_za writes "Earth has acquired a so called quasi-moon, an asteroid: 2003 YN1, which will encircle us for the next couple of years while it orbits the sun on a horse-shoe shaped path. Full story on News24. It was found by team led by Paul Chodas, an asteroid specialist at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. An orbit simulation can be seen in this Java applet."

1 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. "Our" moon? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If it's orbiting the sun, then how can it be called "our" moon? Just because it's vaguely in our vicinity?