NASA: Mystery Object Is 54-Year-Old Rocket, Not Asteroid

Military.com ^ | Dec 3, 2020 | The Canadian Press

[texas booster]

A mysterious object temporarily orbiting Earth is a 54-year-old rocket, not an asteroid after all, astronomers confirmed Wednesday.

Observations by a telescope in Hawaii clinched its identity, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The object was classified as an asteroid after its discovery in September. But NASA’s top asteroid expert, Paul Chodas, quickly suspected it was the Centaur upper rocket stage from Surveyor 2, a failed 1966 moon-landing mission. Size estimates had put it in the range of the old Centaur, which was about 32 feet (10 meters) long and 10 feet (3 meters) in diameter.

Chodas was proven right after a team led by the University of Arizona's Vishnu Reddy used an infrared telescope in Hawaii to observe not only the mystery object, but — just on Tuesday — a Centaur from 1971 still orbiting Earth. The data from the images matched.

“Today’s news was super gratifying!,” Chodas said via email. “It was teamwork that wrapped up this puzzle.”

[texas booster]

The object formally known as 2020 SO entered a wide, lopsided orbit around Earth last month and, on Tuesday, made its closest approach at just over 31,000 miles (50,476 kilometers).

It will depart the neighborhood in March, shooting back into its own orbit around the sun. Its next return: 2036.

[texas booster]

This Sept. 20, 1966 photo provided by the San Diego Air and Space Museum shows an Atlas Centaur 7 rocket on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Fla. (Convair/General Dynamics Astronautics Atlas Negative Collection/San Diego Air and Space Museum via AP)

[texas booster]

A follow up to the thread over here:

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3910907/posts

A Mysterious Object Is Hurtling Towards Earth, and Scientists Don't Know What It Is [But they have a real good idea of what it is]

[taterjay]

The object was classified as an asteroid after its discovery in September.

You mean some scientists that study science were wrong. Now I wonder if everything I hear from FAU XI is right. (sarc)

[cuban leaf]

DO NOT LITTER

[wastedyears]

It wasn’t tracked from its initial launch? How does something unpowered retain an orbit? How does it not either float off into space, or reenter the atmosphere?

They’re hiding something (as usual).

[bayliving]

NASA’s version of “swamp gas.”

[Little Ray]

Depending on the orbit an object is put in, it can stay in orbit for centuries.
I hope this one burns up in the atmosphere so we can be rid of it.

[CIB-173RDABN]

How does something unpowered retain an orbit?

---

How does the moon stay in orbit?

[texas booster]

A single-engine Centaur III being raised for mating to an Atlas V rocket

[C210N]

In related news, the Black Knight satellite.

[norwaypinesavage]

Gosh, and here I thought it was a monster cigar from some huge inter galactic space aliens.

[wastedyears]

How does the moon stay in orbit?

[texas booster]

Please check your TV channel.

I am not sure that you are watching regular TV ...

[Delta 21]

How does something unpowered retain an orbit?

The earth moon and other planets have been doing pretty well for a while now.(?)

[minnesota_bound]

Later a star ship will find it again and discover many people in stasis. One will be named Khan!!!

[bert]

[faucetman]

V**GER

[faucetman]

OOPS!

V***GER

[Campion]

How does something unpowered retain an orbit? How does it not either float off into space, or reenter the atmosphere?

It's in orbit around the sun, an orbit which is perturbed slightly by being so close to the earth's orbit. The unpowered rocket stage maintains its orbit the same way the unpowered earth maintains its orbit.

It's possible that at some point in the distant future, it will pass the earth closely enough to enter the atmosphere, and will burn up.