[blam]

Horseshoe orbit?

[blam]

Notice the 550AD date. (Close to the beginning of the Dark Ages)

[sam_paine]

it could be nudged into a permanent Earth orbit

Or it could be nudged into an Earth intercept if NASA is in charge of the project. Let's just go to the asteroid, let's don't bring it here, eh?

[Junior]

Horseshoe orbit?

For luck, you know...

[RightWhale]

This puts 2002 AA29 is in the same class as 3753 Cruithne

The new one needs a name, something unpronounceable like Cruithne or the forgettable name of the new planet in the Kuiper Belt.

Note to Blam: The orbit appears horseshoe shaped, sort of, as seen from earth.

[dd5339]

Horeshoe Orbit?? I don't think a horseshoe orbit is allowed by Kepler's orbital motion laws. Any physicsts out there?

Semper Fi

[pabianice]

This is a joke, right? An orbital companion that catches us, then reverses direction and goes back the other way? How come? Flubber?

[narby]

I think maybe I understand the "horseshoe" orbit. Although I've never heard of such a thing.

On an orbit very closly matching earth, as it catches up with earth from "behind", it would speed up approaching earth, making its orbit larger, and thus its year would be less than earth, and then move away.

When earth next catches up to it, it would be slowed down, making its orbit lower, and revolve faster around the sun.

This ping-pong action is, what did the article say, 85 years? The part I really wonder about is how they know enough about its orbit to know that Earth would catch it as a new moon at three different points. Maybe it would enter from a Lagrange point, the way the Saturn third stage from Apollo 12 recently did.

[Go Gordon]

I think they just found ancient Palestine. Somebody tell Yassar...

[r9etb]

General Simon Worden of the United States Space Command described it as a "near Earth object that is close to being trapped by the Earth as a second natural satellite".

LOL! Pete Worden keeps showing up like a bad penny in articles of this sort. He's been angling for years to position himself for the Terrestrial Defense command, if such a thing ever comes to pass.

[SunkenCiv]

Astronomy Picture of the Day 5-04-02 [3753 Cruithne mentioned in replies]
NASA | 5-04-02 | Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell
Posted on 05/04/2002 7:26:04 AM PDT by petuniasevan
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/677904/posts

Cat-And-Mouse Asteroid Pulls Close To Earth [2002 AA29]
IOL | 1-3-2003
Posted on 01/04/2003 10:12:20 AM PST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/816864/posts

Odd Asteroid [2003 GQ22]
spaceweather.com | april-15-2003 | spaceweather.com
Posted on 04/15/2003 2:06:02 PM PDT by green team 1999
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/893881/posts

Say hello to our new moon [2003 YN17]
AFP | Fri Mar 26, 2004
Posted on 03/29/2004 12:13:58 PM PST by presidio9
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1107346/posts

page about 2003 CP20, which isn't currently a moon, but co-orbital:
http:.com//www.hohmanntransfer.com/cgi-bin/get.cgi?des=2003cp20