Earth's Little Brother Found

loconet writes "The BBC is reporting that astronomers have discovered the first object ever that is in a companion orbit to the Earth. Asteroid 2002 AA29 is only about 100 metres wide and never comes closer than 3.6 million miles to our planet."

meters, miles...

[targo]

Can't make up your mind of which system to use, huh? :)

Brother?

[fredopalus]

Since it's not a planet, wouldn't it be more like a cousin than a brother.

Damn!

[Kierthos]

They found my secret asteroid base! Now I'll have to move it again before I can continue my plans to take over the world!

Kierthos

SO WHAT???

[corebreech]

Wake me up when Earth's little sister is found, and you've got some decent JPEG's.

Re:Brother?

[gornar]

Since it's not a planet, wouldn't it be more like a cousin than a brother.

More like a red-headed stepkid, from the size of it.

Re:Brother?

[packeteer]

Or the family dog.

31337 413NZ!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

But despite detailed searches no one has yet found any Trojan objects near the Earth. Next come the inter-stellar port scans.

Earth says...

[Talisman]

Earth: "MOMMMMMMM! AA29 won't leave me alone! Please tell him to play on the other side of the solar system?!?"

Tal

Re:Damn!

[einhverfr]

They found my secret asteroid base! Now I'll have to move it again before I can continue my plans to take over the world!

Don't let Mr. Ashcroft hear you say that.

"Nudge" it?

[Eagle7]

Some have speculated that it could be nudged into a permanent Earth orbit where it could be studied at greater length.

I can see it now: "Thanks to a sucessful nudgeing, scientists have been able to determine that Asteroid AA29 is pretty much a big rock. In other news, bizarre tides continue to cause panic and destruction around the world tonight..."

miniature earth!?

[SirSlud]

if there are miniature people in miniature buildings driving miniature SUV's on it .. I'm packin my suitcase and leaving for another galaxy.

Or, barring that, could our planets swap all the SUVs?

Re:Damn!

[PacoTaco]

Why, is it his secret asteroid base?

Re:Damn!

[GuyMannDude]

They found my secret asteroid base! Now I'll have to move it again before I can continue my plans to take over the world!

You should know by now that all your secret asteroid base are belong to us!

GMD

Re:Brother?

[hobbesmaster]

Or the family dog

I thought that was pluto.

Re:meters, miles...

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA had the same problem... it only cost them $125 million.

Re:Second Moon

[GuyMannDude]

Some have speculated that it could be nudged into a permanent Earth orbit where it could be studied at greater length.

Uh, wouldn't that screw up the tidal system?

Yeah, but so what? Our species has a track record of fucking up the environment for the sake of profit. At least now we'd be fucking up the environment for the sake of science.

Yes, I'm kidding people. Sheesh...

GMD

20K libertareans...

[Anonymous Coward]

... now have the perfect candidate for their "free" state.

Forgetting our history?

[vikstar]

But despite detailed searches no one has yet found any Trojan objects near the Earth.

"The Greeks built an immense wooden horse and Odysseus, Menelaus, and other warriors hid inside it. After leaving the horse at the gates of Troy, the Greek army sailed away. The Trojans thought the Greeks had given up and had left the horse as a gift."

Re:meters, miles...

[bongholio]

You think that's bad? As a student pilot, I've learned that the aviation industry has the biggest problem with unit consistency. Or maybe it's the weather industry... check out a _standard_ weather report...

KGTU 220115Z AUTO 15005KT 10SM OVC005 17/16 A3000 RMK AO1

here's what it all means:
kgtu = georgetown, tx airport
22nd of Oct, 0115Z, automated report
winds 150deg @ 5 KNOTS
visibility 10 STATUTE MILES
clouds overcast at 500 FEET
temperture 17deg CELCIUS, dewpoint 16deg CELCIUS
pressure 30.00 INCHES OF HG
remarks: A01=cannot distinguish liquid from frozen precip...

Anyways, as you just saw, the weather is reported using KNOTS, STATUTE MILES, FEET, CELCIUS, IN of HG. Damn! 3 painfully different systems of measurement.. and it seems the more i learn, the more stuff like this I see... I really wish us stubborn americans would just switch to SI...

Re: Damn!

[Black Parrot]

> > Don't let Mr. Ashcroft hear you say that.

> Why, is it his secret asteroid base?

No, it's where he hides statues with tits.

It's the Death Star

[Gandalf21]

"That's no moon"

Knew this was coming

[Babylon Rocker]

Finally! [imdb.com]

Re:Forgetting our history?

[David Walker]

yeah, man, what they're saying is they haven't found any asteroids with disgruntled greek warriors inside them near earth



wait... what?

Re:Horseshoe orbit?

[Anonymous Coward]

This picture [paias.com] illustrates it pretty well.

Yeah, I totally get it now. Thanks.

Re:Doesn't reflect very well on humanity,does it..

[Myco]

Yeah, I know, that kind of thing is complex, but I feel we should have that spurious launch capability

You keep on using that word. I dunna think it means what you think it means.

Re:meters, miles...

[Myco]

Shouldn't be too confusing. Meters are much shorter than miles.

What? What?

Re:libertarians should be gassed

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't burn them... they taste best rare.

Re:"Nudge" it?

[x136]

NASA Guy 1: "You idiot! We were supposed to nudge it at forty feet per second, not forty meters per se-- Shit! There goes Florida!"

NASA Guy 2: "I'm in trouble, aren't I?"

NASA Guy 1: "Uhm, yes. Yes you are."

NASA Guy 2: "Well, look on the bright side. We get to land in California this time!"

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

To make maters worse...

[GMontag]

I military aviation, we have all of that you mention plus, on the topographical maps, the horozontal distance is in kilometers (metric) and the vertical distance/elevation is in feet! The good thing is the altimiter is in feet too, but still...

Couple of comments

[Tablizer]

Little brother? At its size, it is more like a booger of Earth.

It has a highly complicated orbit. It must be female.

Some have speculated that it could be nudged into a permanent Earth orbit where it could be studied at greater length.

Better take out *a lot* of insurance before doing something like that.

Re:meters, miles...

[buck_wild]

What is it with you people and your Earth centric posts? Why can't you use OUR versions of measurement instead of YOURS?

Hello, we Martians are beings too! *snif!*

Re:Orbits, nodes, & more

[saforrest]

Also, a similar orbit does not mean that the climate is also known to be similar a priori.

Climate?? Did you miss reading that this thing is like 100 metres wide? What kind of climate are you expecting?

At the most, we could expect an asteroid of that size to support a little boy, maybe some sheep, and a flower. :)

Little brother planet? Dammit

[Nathdot]

So just like that it shows up into our lives and we're meant to be all happy about it.

And I suppose we're expected to step in if Mercury or Venus start trying to take it's lunch money. And you know they're just gonna have a bigger brother as well. Don't we have enough problems with global warming and the like, without actively looking for trouble?

EXT. SPACE

2002 AA29:
You better not pick on me or gonna get my brother earth and he'll kick your ass!

MERCURY:
Oh yeah, I'd like to see him try.

EXT. SPACE - LATER

EARTH:
(sigh, to Mercury)
I heard you were giving my little brother shit.
(menacing)
What're you going to do about it now?

MERCURY:
Have you met my brother Jupiter?

From nowhere the gargantuan JUPITER appears.

EARTH:
Oh shit! Ay-Ay run!!!

When will we, the citizens of earth, ever learn that violence never solves anything.

Re:meters, miles...

[Tablizer]

Can't make up your mind of which system to use, huh? :)

A compromise has been made. When it is on the left side of Earth, use English units, and when it is on the right side, use metric units.

Re:meters, miles...

[bobdotorg]

I really wish us stubborn americans would just switch to SI...


So what are the S.I. units for a good ol' /.'ing?

Hits?

Sysadmin pagings?

Attempted GB's of transfer?

I'm just imagining what the local newscast tease would sound like, "Scientists at Caltech are reporting a slashdotting of 7.4 on the POSA* scale, centered under poorslashdottedbastard.com. Film at 11."

POSA - Pissed Off SysAdmin

Just a rock?

[Superfreaker]

Now you will see the power of this FULLY FUNCTIONAL battle station!

Venus

[w00d]

Here you go. [yurisnight.net] Fap away!

Famous last words...

[vikstar]

"it could be nudged into a permanent Earth orbit where it could be studied at greater length."

Re:Brother?

[catwh0re]

If you consider Venus the older sister, then we can substain that earth suffers from middle-child syndrome.

Re:Brother?

[Wolfrider]

Since it's in a "companion" orbit, I wish they would name it K-9...
.

Re:Venus

[garbs]

Hot didly dang, I never realised how hot Earth's sister was, hoo wee.

Re:Why the US will never switch to metric

[weiyuent]

1) Thousandths of an inch are useful in measuring machine tolerances, while millimeters are two gross and micrometers too fine.

Millimeters are two gross? As in 2 x 144? ;-) I think you mean "too coarse".

2)Celcius is not fine grained enough to figure out how to dress for the weather, while Fahrenheit allows one to easily judge whether or not to wear a jacket.

You have got to be kidding me. Do you wear a hundred layers of tissue paper, peeling them off one by one at 1 Fahrenheit incremements? I've survived so far just by putting on a jacket when it get's close to freezing.

3) In the English System, force is the fundemental unit and mass is the derived unit, while in the metric system, mass is fundemental and force is derived. This works well for science and engineering, but Joe Sixpack thinks in terms of weight on earth -- pounds of force.

Oh please. So you're telling me that everyone who uses the metric system gets terribly confused when they have to speak in precise terms of mass vs. force? You must be denser *grin* than I thought.

Klytus, I'm bored...

[Anonymous Coward]

What plaything can you offer me today?
An obscure body in the S-K system, your Majesty. The inhabitants refer to it as the planet, "Earth."
How peaceful it looks.
(cue destruction)
Most effective, your Majesty. Will you destroy this, uh, "Earth?"
Later. I like to play with things a while before annihilation....

(dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum....)

Re:Why the US will never switch to metric

[Anonymous Coward]

Celcius is not fine grained enough to figure out how to dress for the weather, while Fahrenheit allows one to easily judge whether or not to wear a jacket.


BWAHAHAHAHA, Oh geez you just lost it there didn't you. Oh shit the temp outside just change a few degrees what will I do run for the hills ahahhaha

Re:meters, miles...

[EmagGeek]

Americans will NEVER switch to SI (much to my dismay).. Here's why:

• Football players' union would demand a proportional increase in salary for the extra distance
• Football stadiums are too short to extend to a 100m playing field and still have enough setback behind the end zones to comply with OSHA safety regulations
• A quarter pounder sounds bigger than an eighth-kilogrammer, and 100g sounds tiny
• Americans couldn't comprehend reciprocating fuel mileage (Liters/100km rather than mi/gal)
• Tons of government software would have to be thrown out and/or rewritten for the switch (wait a minute.... they still use FORTRAN77 for stuff)
• Having unified units throughout the world might be a threat to our national security (who the hell anywhere else knows what an URG is?)
• Sears couldn't sell a 500 piece socket set, half of which is completely useless
• What woman would ever admit to wearing a size 32 shoe or having a size 65 waistline? (Although they'd probably love having a size 86 chest or being 168 tall)
• The Daytona 500 would become the Daytona 804.672, and that number is too big for NASCAR fans to comprehend (it was only recently that they could start having 600 mile races)
• A Wendy's Triple w/ Everything has 810 caliories, which is bad enough. However it has 3,391,308 joules - try selling the biggie-size on that one!
• Who wants to pay for gas by the liter? (or shall I say "litre")
• Americans don't want to have to start mis-spelling (interject) everything, like "colour" and "litre" and "behaviour" etc
• The mile markers on I-85 in Alabama couldn't be so cool anymore - now they go 1,1,2,3,2,4,3,5,6,4,7,8,5,9, etc....

and so on, so as you can see, conversion to SI in America wouldn't be worth the trouble...

Re:meters, miles...

[vslashg]

Sears couldn't sell a 500 piece socket set, half of which is completely useless

Why would that change?

Re:meters, miles...

[cje]

I really wish us stubborn americans would just switch to SI...

The Carter Administration tried this back in the 1970s. The plan was to gradually ease the U.S. into the metric system; the first step was to put up metric speed limit signs. Patriotic Americans responded warmly by shooting them down. So you could say that the metric system has not caught on very well here, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet. (Paraphrasing Dave Barry.)

Re:meters, miles...

[zbuffered]

"Scientists at Caltech are reporting a slashdotting of 7.4 on the POSA* scale, centered under poorslashdottedbastard.com. Film at 11."

"Scientists estimate the site recieved upwards of 4,000 hits in two minutes, or 3,451 hits metric."

Re:meters, miles...

[jc42]

Back in the mid 80's, NPR had a couple of fun articles about the non-celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the US going metric.

This needed a bit of explaining, of course. It turns out that the US, like most countries, actually has no legally-required system of measurements. There are laws (or more often, regulations) that specific items must be measured with specific units. But there is no overall requirement that all measurements be in the same "system".

However, the US government has always had an official standards body. It has had various names and acronyms, such as NBS (National Bureau of Standards) or NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). It basically manages the regulations that say "If you use unit U, you must use the official definition of U, which is ...."

So how did the US "go metric" in the 1880's? Well, what the national standards bureau did then was to revise the official definition of all terms of measurement. They've done this many times. At that time, they decided that the best system in use by scientists and engineers was the "metric" system centered in Paris. There were already copies of the metric units in the US, and they were used for calibration. What was done was to make this official, and publish definitions of all the common units as multiples of the metric units.

These definitions have mostly continued. Thus, the legal definition of an inch is 0.0254 meters. This is not an approximation. It is exact, because it's the official definition of "inch".

It occurred to me while listening to the NPR articles that what the US has is what we in the computer field would call an "extended metric system". We have all the metric terms, but we also have a whole lot more. This obviously makes the American system more versatile, right?

So it's really an example of "embrace and extend."

Sounds like my brother...

[kr4jb]

- is only about 100 metres wide
- never comes closer than 3.6 million miles to our planet

Sounds like my brother.

Re:Couple of comments

[plutonium binky]

maybe its a stalker...like one in grade one or something... oooh someone has a crush on earth. :| all the good comments were already taken.

Watch for falling rocks

[rendermouse]

"Some have speculated that it could be nudged into a permanent Earth orbit where it could be studied at greater length. "

Just what we need. Someone pushing huge space rocks closer to the planet to get a better look.

Have you never broken a microscope slide by zooming in too far?

Re:Famous last words...

[sczimme]

"Hey y'all - watch this!"