Slashdot Mirror
Earth Acquires a Quasi-Moon
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."
Here's a link to Discovery Channel's coverage without the need for registration.
Mike
"That's no Moon!"
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
... which will encircle us for the next couple of ears...
I'm unfamiliar with this unit of measurement.
Have you no remorse? It's one thing to slashdot a web page, but java? You can't rightly do that!
Yeah I know, it's a joke. The class is just like any other static file.
Earth has acquired a so called quasi-moon, an asteroid: 2003 YN1, which will encircle us for the next couple of ears .
And exactly whose ears are we going to sacrifice to the asteroid god in order to have it here in our presence?
Despite the warnings about only 2-body maths being used in the applet, it's too tempting not to run it forwards and backwards a bit just to see... It turns out the closest approach would have been roughly a week before it was noticed on Dec 8th 2003, at 0.0455 AU or ~6,807,000 km. A fair old distance :-)
:-)
I guess it's not too often you get your own asteroid orbiting, but this is still going to be a looong way away for a lot of the time. Maybe when it does get close though, we can send something up to it - beats the hell out of going out to the Oort cloud, even if you do find a few planets along the way
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
What sort of eclipse can we expect from this? To experience a solar eclipse from a temporary sattelite would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
The Cheese Stands Alone.
Here's the screenshot:
.
O o
Sun:earth:new "moon"
Not to scale. All rights reserved.
If it's orbiting the sun, then how can it be called "our" moon? Just because it's vaguely in our vicinity?
And this is a dupe from 4 years ago.
Earth's Second Moon 2nd Moon Orbiting Earth Discovered
Not even a little evil?
QUASI-evil?
The Diet Coke of evil?
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Would those be the final front-ears?
You must think in Russian.
Actually we had a new moon last weekend. It happens every 28 days...
"..while it orbits the sun on a horse-shoe shaped path..."
If only Isac Newton knew this...
...you insensitive clod....
I have misplaced my pants.
he'll know what to do
"...this is a Moon!"
(shudders) Now dealing with mental image of naked Australian backsides...
This is where the serious fun begins.
There is an entire branch of astronomy that uses distributed observations to map the size and shapes of asteroids using occultations (eclipses with distant stars). When an asteroid passes in front a distant star, the star winks out and then reappears. Knowing the duration (start and stop times) of the occultation, the location of the observer, and the orbits of the Erath and asteroid lets people estimate the size and shape of the asteroid. International Occultation and Timing Association collects data from telescopes around the world (many in the hands of hobbyists) and uses the data to make these estimates.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
A single voice cried out in horror, and was suddenly silenced.
This is the third asteroid we've found which has an orbit tied loosely to that of the Earth. The others are 3753 Cruithne and 2002 AA29. You can see pictures and applets and read about these other bodies at Paul Wiegert's web site:
http://www.astro.uwo.ca/~wiegert/
Michael Richmond "This is the heart that broke my finger."
mwrsps@rit.edu http://stupendous.rit.edu
It will be the first time I ever saw this.
"...it orbits the sun on a horse-shoe shaped path."
It sticks itself in reverse to avoid making a complete loop.
But how can this be a moon of Earth if it orbits THE SUN?
No sig for you!!
I wanted to call it "George" but the teenager in the house has christened it "Foof." (Two o's, like "moon". Her 1st draft was naturally scatological.) C'mon /.ers, let's come up with a name!
If a horse had dropped on him we wouldn't have to take calculus classes...
Also the first thing I thought of. Why the Hell not? How much delta-v would it take to push it into a stable orbit. Sounds like a better use of $$ than a lunar base. At least a lunar base as a jumping off point for Mars. This thing (or Cruithne) seem destined to become space stations at some point - why not now?
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
Let's name it Wormwood! Give the religious folk a hell of a time.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
Let me go find that quatrain. I'm sure there was something about millions dead and nuclear winter and slashdotting the original site...
Aussie: That ain't a planet, this IS a planet.
Bart: That no planet, thats a quasi moon.
Aussie: Alright alright, I see you've played planetry quasi moony before then.
Jonathanjk.com
Orbit diagram page temporarily unavailable due to high server load.
=
Orbit diagram page temporarily unavailable due to slashdot.org
Can't we all just take turns?
*DrugCheese rants*
Two drunks are walking along. One drunk says to the other, "What a beautiful night, look at the moon." The other drunk stops and looks at his drunk friend. "You're wrong, that's not the moon, that's the sun." They began to argue when they come upon another drunk. They asked, "Sir, could you please help settle our argument? Tell us what that thing is up in the sky that's shining. Is it the moon or the sun?" The third drunk looked at the sky and said, "Sorry, I don't live around here."
Hey, let's change orbit of that thing and have another space station
Interesting idea, but we have no idea of what the consequences are of rearranging the momenta of the solar system, or any other "environmental" impacts. How would you make such a decision without adequate knowledge of the impacts?
(Turns out that this body is scheduled to intercept an Asteroid, but because we messed with it, Bruce Willis dies in Armageddon).
to the Engineer, the glass is neither half full nor half empty. Its just two times too big.
According to the article, the magnitude is around 24. The best the human eye can see is about magnitude 5 given excellent conditions.
:
It is essentially invisible unless you have a decent research telescope.
More info on the astronomical magnitude scale can be found here
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/icq/MagScale.html
What's up is that our telescopes are getting good enough to see those tiny rocks.
Be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker. JG Ballard
I think we're just better at spotting them with advances in telescopes and so on. That and the fact we've started looking for them seriously as we get paranoid about being wiped out by an asteroid.
"I think everyone is an agnostic but just doesn't know" - Frazz
With the discovery of this new moon, I'm offering you the opportunity to get in on the action! Just like the original moon, you can now own your own section of the new moon.
Here's your report card:
(X) confrontational attitude
(X) can recognize something neat
( ) reading skills
(X) enjoys cool applets
What I want to know, is why isn't anyone pushing to steer these NEO rocks into one of the Lagrange points [http://www.physics.montana.edu/faculty/cornish/la grange.html] and construct a REAL space habitat instead of sending a man to Mars or establishing a "permanent" lunar base? It would be pretty cheap to do so, as the technology to build robots to do the grunt work is pretty much within our grasp now. Having sufficient bulk would make for a decent radiation shield, and even a micro-gravity environment is preferable to the zero-G of the ISS, as dust+debris are more readily managed.
There are at least 3 known small (a few kilometers in diameter) rocks that are close enough to send out a robot "tug" with a large amount of propellant, some good-sized solar arrays (or a nuclear battery) to power an ion drive. All the tug needs to do is match orbits with the asteroid, position itself, make contact and gently push it in the right direction. It would take a long time to put the asteroid into one of the L4/L5 points, but as tugs expire, new ones can be sent (or send additional tugs to speed up the process) at a very minimal cost, with a very simple trade-off of time vs money.
I would expect that by the time we get multiple asteroids in close proximity to each other in one of the stable Lagrange points, we would be able to send much more capable robotic workers to either tie the asteroids together with titanium I-beams, or better yet, tether them together with carbon fiber cables and put some spin on the assemblage to keep them under tension. Initially, we could construct living spaces inside the rocks, but as capabilities increase, and more material is placed into the mix, it would be possible to create a poor man's RingWorld with considerable acreage. It's a great place to harvest solar power, base elaborate interplanetary communications facilities and astronomical observatories.
The costs of maintaining an effort like this are very small, and it has the benefit of collecting wandering rocks that might one day drop in on us and put them to good use. Far better than programs to blow them up with nukes, and Bruce Willis won't be around to save us forever.
I was looking at the orbits of Pluto and Neptune on the applet, and noticed that Pluto is shown as inside Neptunes orbit at present and until 2011, but I was under the impression that Pluto was once again the farthest planet, as of 1999, and wouldn't pass in again until 2226. So I'm not sure their orbits are correct....
P.S. Don't tell bush, but I think there may be oil up there and I would like to avoid invasion for now.
That really is my homepage, no kidding.
It's not so much delta-v that would be a problem, as much as the reaction mass that would be the problem. m1*v1=m2*v2. The asteroid must weigh several thousand metreic tons at least. The amount of reaction mass necessary to change a 1 metric ton mass by 1 meter/second is 3.33 miligrams, assuming we shot those miligrams off at the speed of light. We are talking thousands of tons of asteroid and a much less efficient engine. Until we get nuclear rockets and a space elevator up, it probably wouldn't be economical. Unless we could use its (ralatively) close aproach to mars in 2015 to swing it around to the earth.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
"while it orbits the sun on a horse-shoe shaped path"
Uh, wouldn't it be easier to fly an elliptical orbit?
IANARS (I Am Not A Rocket Scientist), but from playing with the Java applet, it appears that 2003YN1 is going to come surprisingly close to Earth within the next decade.
In January of 2007, for instance, the asteroid will be trailing Earth by about 0.5 AU. In November of 2020, Earth will be trailing the asteroid by a hair's breadth (in cosmic terms) of 0.1 AU.
Now, four light-minutes (or even 0.75 light-minutes) isn't exactly spitting distance, but how often do we have asteroids within such close proximity to Earth, in such convenient orbits? I imagine it would be fairly cheap to launch a probe to match orbits with the asteroid, rendezvous with it and do some science. A return mission in 2020 would be a distinct possibility (if it were useful, which I'm not sure it would be).
Now, the budgetary and planning requirements for a 2007 mission are probably unmanageable at this late date, especially given NASA's (or ESA's) current budgets. But we've got 16 years to plan for a 2020 mission. What manner of experiments might we be able to devise in the intervening years? What possibilities can you think of?
1) Establish an unmanned observatory on the asteroid
2) Land a power source and construct a propulsion system (using a linear accelerator to eject the asteroid's own mass?) and try to change the asteroid's orbit. Depending on the composition of that baby, it might be worth a pretty penny if we could put it into near Earth orbit for mining.
3) Same as #2, only turn the asteroid into a long-term habitat. Free giant space station, anyone?
OK, so these ideas are a bit far-fetched, possibly venturing into the realm of science fiction. But dreams have to start somewhere...
We seem to be having trouble & high failure rates with just sending tiny robotic probes to Mars, and we can hardly even keep a couple of rusty buckets in low earth orbit operating. Moving a small asteroid gently (maybe using solar sails) should be well within our technological capabilities, but it doesn't seem like we have our act together enough to do it.
Right now, the US, one of the richest nations, doesn't even seem to be able to pay for health care or secondary education, but we are willing to pay hundreds of billions to have our shoes x-rayed in order to guard against an infinitesimal chance of getting killed by terrorists. So, you see, the problems aren't technical, they are psychological, social, and political.
(Besides, you really don't want the "oh, that was kilometers" kinds of errors with such a project.)
The simulator link is incorrect. It points to 2004 YN1. The correct link. For a good view in the simulator, tilt the 3D view to straight down, center on earth and zoom in all the way.
New Scientist has an interesting article in their latest issue.
For a more technical explanation, read the paper presented at the Lunary Planetary Science Conference last week.
With a little more specificity, if this object is m=24, then it's about (24-7)=17 magnitudes fainter than the *best* that the human eye can do. To put that into perspective, given that five magnitudes of difference is about 100x difference in actual brightness (~2.5^5), a difference of 17 magnitudes is *roughly* 5.8E6 (2.5^17) times fainter than the human eye is capable seeing in optimal, dark-sky conditions.
Also, see: International Dark-Sky Association
No gods, no demons, and no masters. Secular Humanism!
The picture on the Discovery Channel coverage is not the asteroid in question. I know this means I need to get out more, but I instantly recognized that picture as 243 Ida and its tiny satellite Dactyl.
Ydco co
The moon is bright over Lebanon tonight! The Lebanese moon looks down shim! sham! shikam!!! Cattle Explodes! Cow shrapnel drips off a tree cascades into a mothers tear. Poor little boy who goes into battle and comes back dead or worse comes back a man. Why don't you warn them moon? Why don't you say duck or scram? But the moon will not. The moon just sits there grinning like a corpse at a Dean Martin roast. What are you laughing at moon? Why don't you share it with the whole class moon? The moon laughs knowingly, the moon laughs, the moon, the.
What if said backside belonged to Nichole Kidman, or Elle Macpherson?
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
You've described the mass driver, the standard asteroid/ore moving workhorse of the O'Neill/L5 space colonization effort.
It works like this: picture a bucket on a recirculating rail. The rail is pretty long, hundreds of feet at least. The bucket meglevs along the rail.
There would be at least three railguns on the asteroid, pointing away from the asteroid in opposing directions. Actual orientation is not that important, what is important is that the rails point away.
In operation, the "bucket" stops at a point along the rail on the surface of the asteroid. Some mechanism plonks a pound or so of rock into the bucket. The bucket locks the material down.
The bucket now electromagnetically moves away to the railgun run. On reaching it, it accelerates. At an approprate time, it releases the payload. The bucket slows down, and returns to the loading point.
The process changes the the path of both the payload (reaction mass) and to the asteroid itself. Repeat this process millions of times, and you alter the asteroid's orbit.
The beauty part of a mass driver is that it has no moving parts in contact. You just need something to shovel in the reaction mass, and electricity to run the linear accelerators.
Asteroids can be moved in this manner. Rockets won't hack it, nor ion engines, nor nuclear explosions. Lack of control, or raw power.
We could shape the orbits of these Earth grazers to bring them a little closer to home so that we can exploit them for raw materials to build habitats, build ships, build elevators.
Space elevator projects require a large mass at the opposite end of the tether from the surface to anchor the cable. Asteroids have been suggested for the necessary mass. Mass drivers are the way to go if you want to get that mass.