Near-Earth Asteroid is a Fragment From the Moon, Say Scientists (theguardian.com) 15
Scientists have identified what appears to be a small chunk of the moon that is tracking the Earth's orbit around the Sun. From a report: The asteroid, named Kamo'oalewa, was discovered in 2016 but until now relatively little has been known about it. New observations suggest it could be a fragment from the moon that was thrown into space by an ancient lunar collision. Kamo'oalewa is one of Earth's quasi-satellites, a category of asteroid that orbits the Sun, but remains relatively close to the planet -- in this case about 9m miles away.
Despite being close in astronomical terms, the asteroid is about the size of a ferris wheel and about 4m times fainter than the faintest star that can be seen with the naked eye. Consequently, the Earth's most powerful telescopes are needed to make observations. Using the Large Binocular Telescope on Mount Graham in southern Arizona, astronomers found the spectrum of reflected light from Kamo'oalewa closely matched lunar rocks from Nasa's Apollo missions, suggesting it originated from the moon. They had initially compared the light with that reflected off other near-Earth asteroids, but drawn a blank. "I looked through every near-Earth asteroid spectrum we had access to, and nothing matched," said Ben Sharkey, a PhD student at the University of Arizona and the paper's lead author.
Despite being close in astronomical terms, the asteroid is about the size of a ferris wheel and about 4m times fainter than the faintest star that can be seen with the naked eye. Consequently, the Earth's most powerful telescopes are needed to make observations. Using the Large Binocular Telescope on Mount Graham in southern Arizona, astronomers found the spectrum of reflected light from Kamo'oalewa closely matched lunar rocks from Nasa's Apollo missions, suggesting it originated from the moon. They had initially compared the light with that reflected off other near-Earth asteroids, but drawn a blank. "I looked through every near-Earth asteroid spectrum we had access to, and nothing matched," said Ben Sharkey, a PhD student at the University of Arizona and the paper's lead author.
Sounds concerning (Score:2)
So, there's a ferris-wheel sized rock floating 9 miles up. Unless this is Lagrange point I don't know about, shouldn't we be at least a little concerned?
Re: Sounds concerning (Score:3)
Oh, sorry, misread. Mostly due to shitty /. editors thinking "9m miles" is an acceptable way to write "9 million miles".
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
More concerning, they never state the size of the ferris wheel in football fields.
OMG (Score:2)
It is only 9 meters away! We're doomed!!
Standards. (Score:2)
I had no idea that ferris wheel diameters were standardized. They couldn't have compared it to something we all have experience with, like a 15-story building? Who comes up with this bullshit?
Re: (Score:2)
They hired a guy to give a better measurement, but it was Ferris Bueler's day off.
Re: Standards. (Score:2)
The London Eye used to be the largest extant power, but the new one in Dubai has doubled it again.
All asteroids claim they are moon parts (Score:1)
...they just want attention.
Is this not a good option for a visit? (Score:2)
It's close, it's not too massive, there's essentially no problem with the velocity differential, and given that it survived ejection from the Moon, it's probably solid and not a lightly gravitationally-bound ball of dust.
It's a toy waiting for us to play space billiards with it. We don't have the technology to crash it into Earth even accidentally, so trying to alter its orbit as an experimental test of asteroid deflection techniques is safe enough.
Re: (Score:2)
We're already visiting one. It launches in a few weeks. [nasa.gov]
Re: (Score:2)
NICE! Thanks for posting.
Also, I'm adding this extra text because Slashdot doesn't care that I'm a fast typist and assumes I'm spamming or something because I was ready to click submit so quickly after clicking reply.
So of all the possible places it can come from (Score:1)
So of all the possible places it can come from, one day it just throw itself off the moons surface and into space, genius, undoubtedly the truth absolutely no chance it is a rock from somewhere else in space that got trapped in our gravitational pull. The chance these fools have no idea what they are talking about is so low its not even worth considering.