Mystery Object in the Sky

From : Joey Gowdy
To : Terry Gowdy

Date : 09/13/2002 - 11:11

Subject : Mystery Object in High Earth Orbit ??

Could these two new orbital "moons" in fact be the objects falling from the sky as mentioned in Revelations ?? 

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Mystery Object In High Earth Orbit?
From James Oberg



9-10-2

Roger W. Sinnott Senior Editor Sky & Telescope

This Is SKY & TELESCOPE's AstroAlert for Minor Planets

MYSTERY OBJECT

Since September 5th, the Minor Planet Mailing List (MPML) has been abuzz with speculation about an unidentified 16th- magnitude object. During the next 10 days the object will be moving rapidly across Aries and then Taurus, passing between the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters.

Bill Yeung discovered the object September 3rd in CCD images taken with an 0.45-meter telescope in Benson, Arizona. The fast- mover was "auto detected" when he analyzed his images with DC-3 Dreams' PinPoint software. Yeung e-mailed the positions to the Minor Planet Center (MPC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts

http://www.harvard.edu/iau/mpc.html

which quickly posted the object on its Near-Earth Object Confirmation Page under the temporary designation J002E3. But within a few days the MPC removed the object from that listing; preliminary orbit calculations suggested it was traveling in a large, 50-day orbit around the Earth, not the Sun. It had all the earmarks of being a spent rocket casing or other piece of "space junk" instead of a true minor planet.

But what exactly is it? Efforts by Tony Beresford in Australia and other satellite experts have failed to match this object with any known artificial satellite. Photometric measurements by Peter Kusnirak in the Czech Republic failed to show much variation in brightness, as would be expected of a small metallic object, especially if cylindrical. But the big question is, if it is really in Earth orbit, why has it not been detected before? In Yeung's words, 16th magnitude should have made it "a piece of cake" for survey telescopes like LINEAR and NEAT, or for CCD-equipped amateur instruments, to locate long ago.

Finally, late on September 9th, Paul Chodas (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) weighed in with this posting to the MPML:

"The unusual object J002E3, formerly on the Minor Planet Center NEO confirmation page, has been loaded into our Horizons system so that interested observers can generate ephemerides.... Further observations of the object are highly desirable to help characterize the nature of the object: we will update our orbit solution as they become available.

"Telnet and email users of Horizons can access this object by typing 'J002E3'. Web users of Horizons can access the object by going to the Major Body Menu, selecting the Spacecraft list, and choosing the entry 'J002E3 Spacecraft (UNCONFIRMED)'. The available time span is currently August 1 through December 1, 2002. The telnet address of Horizons is
telnet://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov:6775/

and the web

http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eph

For the full text, or to subscribe to the Minor Planet Mailing List, please visit these URLs:

MPML Home Page:
http://www.bitnik.com/mp

 
MPML FAQ:
http://www.bitnik.com/mp/MPML-FAQ


html MPML's Yahoogroups page:
http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/mpml

Amateurs who are experienced in astrometry should have no trouble recording this mystery object with CCD-equipped 8-inch and larger telescopes. Measurements should be sent both to Chodas and to the Minor Planet Center  using the standard reporting format.

We don't provide an ephemeris in this AstroAlert because, like 2002 NY40 a few weeks ago, J002E3 has a very large topocentric parallax. You'll need to enter your own observatory code, or a latitude and longitude, into HORIZONS to obtain accurate predictions for your location.

Roger W. Sinnott Senior Editor Sky & Telescope 

  
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2251386.stm

An amateur astronomer may have found another moon of the Earth. Experts say it may have only just arrived.
Much uncertainty surrounds the mysterious object, designated J002E2. It could be a passing chunk of rock captured by the Earth's gravity, or it could be a discarded rocket casing coming back to our region of space.

It was discovered by Bill Yeung from his observatory in Arizona and reported as a passing Near-Earth Object. It was soon realised however that far from passing us it was in a 50-day orbit around the Earth.

Paul Chodas of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California says it must have just arrived or it would have been easily detected long ago. Calculations suggest it may have been captured earlier this year.

Moon or junk?

When he detected the object Bill Yeung contacted the Minor Planet Centre in Massachusetts, the clearing house for such discoveries, which gave it the designation J002E2 and posted it on their Near-Earth Object Confirmation webpage.

Soon however, its motion suggested it was in an orbit around the Earth. Its movements had all the hallmarks of being a spent rocket casing or other piece of space junk.

But experts are not completely sure what exactly the object is.

Observations made by Tony Beresford in Australia indicate that the object's position does not match any known piece of space junk. Observations made in Europe have failed to see any variations in brightness that might be expected from a slowly spinning metallic object.

Nasa's Paul Chodas says the object must have arrived quite recently or else it would have been easily detected by any of several automated sky surveys that astronomers are conducting.

Its trajectory suggests that it may have been captured in April or May of this year, but there is still some uncertainty about this.

If it is determined that J002E2 is natural it will become Earth's third natural satellite.

Earth's second one is called Cruithne. It was discovered in 1986 and it takes a convoluted horseshoe path around our planet as it is tossed about by the Earth's and the Moon's gravity.

Astronomers, professional and amateur, are carrying out further observations to determine if J002E2 is really another moon of the Earth, or just a piece of space junk

http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/56886.htm



WEIRD BUT TRUE


September 12, 2002 -- An amateur astronomer from Arizona may have found another moon of the Earth.
It's been designated J002E2, and experts say it may have only just arrived.

The new moon was discovered by Bill Yeung, who reported it as a passing "near-Earth object." He later found, though, that it wasn't passing, but rather was in a 50-day orbit around the Earth.

Click to expand...