Surprise! Earth Passing Asteroid 1998 QE2 Has a Moon

UniverseToday ^ | May 30, 2013 | Nancy Atkinson on

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks! I’d added TVF to the keywords, here’s why.

The NEAR Challenge
http://metaresearch.org/solar%20system/asteroids/near/NEARChallengeBackground.asp

[snip] I predict that three or more satellites 1-meter in size or larger constitutes a win for eph (thereby conceding a simple binary asteroid with a single, Dactyl-like orbiting moon to the mainstream). [/snip]

http://metaresearch.org/solar%20system/asteroids/near/NEARChallengeResults.asp

http://metaresearch.org/solar%20system/asteroids/near/NEARChallengeUpdate151298.asp

[BenLurkin]

I have some dumb questions:

If they didn’t find a moon around Eros how does that establish the exploded planet hypothesis?

How exactly does a planet explode?

[SunkenCiv]

TVF said the opposite — that asteroidal moons are predicted by the EPH, and not by any other model. My feeling is, and has been, that asteroidal moons are a pretty trivial thing, and have nothing much to say about the likelihood of the EPH, but it made a nice sidebar. :’)

[SunkenCiv]

And regarding how does a planet explode, TVF offered one scenario (overspin) which would/might only apply to recently formed bodies (or bodies which recently got added to in some significant fashion), yet he posited an EP sometime in the last 10 million years, another one sometime shortly before the K-T extinction, etc.

[tbw2]

It’s hard for an asteroid to have one, because they are so small.

[SunkenCiv]

OTOH, some asteroids are oblong or misshapen, and in those cases probably began as two (or more) asteroids, winding up giving each other the come-hither, until they became one. Of course, a smallish object crossing their mutual path at the right velocity could knock them apart as it was vaporized by the impact.

[SunkenCiv]

for examples:

4179 Toutatis
1620 Geographos

http://www.google.com/search?q=near+earth+asteroids+oblong

[SunkenCiv]

and while we’re talking about this:

3753 Cruithne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3753_Cruithne
2010 SO16
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_SO16
2002 AA29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_AA29
2006 RH120
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_RH120
2010 TK7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_TK7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_(astronomy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lissajous_orbit