Earth Acquires a Quasi-Moon 258
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."
So it's not a threat (Score:5, Interesting)
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
I wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)
since 1996? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Next couple of ears? (Score:2, Interesting)
uh wha'zat? (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Let's NAME it!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:space station (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:uh wha'zat? (Score:3, Interesting)
The old Moon's orbit is even eccentric toward the Sun when it's sunward of the earth. This new object's eccentricity toward the Sun is just much much greater.
Re:no reg link... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:space station (Score:2, Interesting)
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).
Re:What's up with all the asteroids? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why not capture the thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:uh wha'zat? (Score:5, Interesting)
3753 Cruithne [astro.uwo.ca]
2002 AA29 [astro.uwo.ca]
Research opportunities in 2007 and 2020? (Score:3, Interesting)
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...
Re:Why not capture the thing? (Score:1, Interesting)
Really you're better off just building a space platform from scratch at a Lagrange point than trying to anchor it to some tumbling asteroid - what's the point? There seems to be some desire for "solid ground" here, but that's not what an asteroid is.
The other reason, of course, is that a moonbase has psychological value (particularly to Americans) well beyond any engineering reason. For something that's going to cost a lot and take a long time, the value in compelling entire nations to support it outweighs any technical argument you could muster.