Saturday, June 10, 2006

Corkscrew Asteroid





News flash: Earth has a "second moon." Asteroid 2003 YN107 is looping around our planet once a year. Measuring only 20 meters across, the asteroid is too small to see with the unaided eye -- but it is there.

This news, believe it or not, is seven years old.

"2003 YN107 arrived in 1999," says Paul Chodas of NASA's Near Earth Object Program at JPL, "and it's been corkscrewing around Earth ever since." Because the asteroid is so small and poses no threat, it has attracted little public attention. But Chodas and other experts have been monitoring it. "It's a very curious object," he says.

2 comments:

W.M. Bear said...

It would be cool if sometime in the future Earth captured an asteroid large enough to be visible to the unaided eye, like Deimos or Phobos.

Mac said...

Really cool!