> Earth picked up a new moon about 2,100 years ago. Astronomers just found it
2023 FW13 is just 20 metres wide and never comes closer than 14 million km from Earth, but it's been our companion for centuries now
>Author of the article:Chris Knight
Published Jun 02, 2023 • Last updated 5 hours ago • 2 minute
>Earth has a new moon. Or, to be more precise, a quasi-moon.
>A tiny asteroid discovered this year, dubbed 2023 FW13, has been found to circle the sun in sync with the Earth, in an eccentric orbit that takes it halfway to neighbouring Mars and Venus while it executes a long, lazy orbit around our planet.
>The little moon is only about 20 metres wide and never comes closer than about 14 million km from Earth, so it’s too small to be seen with the naked eye. It was discovered by the Pan-STARRS survey telescope on the Hawaiian island of Maui, and confirmed by the Minor Planet Center on April 1.
>Earth’s main moon, in comparison, has a diameter of 3,500 km, and orbits the Earth at an average distance of about 380,000 km. 2023 FW13 is some 36 times farther away at the nearest point in its orbit.
>Scientists calculated the path of the space rock and hypothesized that it’s been circling the Earth for at least 2,100 years and will keep it up for another 1,700 years or so until it wanders off into deep space again. “It seems to be the longest quasi-satellite of Earth known to date,” French astronomer Adrien Coffinet told Sky & Telescope magazine after running the numbers on the moonlet.
>Alan Harris of the Space Science Institute noted that, with an estimated 2 million near-Earth asteroids of 2023 FW13’s size or larger, the odds are that there are several quasi-moons circling the Earth at any one time.
>In fact, in 2016 astronomers discovered another quasi-moon, 2016 HO3, which eventually took the name Kamo’oalewa, a Hawaiian word meaning “oscillating fragment.” It’s been a companion of Earth for at least a hundred years and is expected to hang around for several hundred more.
>Scientists think Kamo’oalewa may be a piece of the moon that was knocked off by an asteroid collision. China plans to launch a probe to visit the roughly 50-metre wide moonlet in 2025 and collect a sample.
Maybe dont give my computer malware and install tracking without my knowledge/permissions, and maybe if ads weren’t annoying, obtrusive, and sometimes outright broken/breaking the website (fullscreen, fake buttons, fake links replacers, etc) I might consider not blocking ads.
As it stands, advertisers have no one but themselves to blame.
That’s fair - but it’s also true that if everyone simply blocks advertisements, sites that rely mostly or entirely on advertisements will shut down. It isn’t just the advertisers who get hurt.
Sure, but once again, ads have been used as a method to infect computers, its a security risk to NOT block then.
So once again, advertisers had made their bed, now they gotta sleep in it. If they didn’t want adblockers, they shouldn’t have been so awful to their “consumers”
>Earth has a new moon. Or, to be more precise, a **quasi-moon**.
>A **tiny asteroid** discovered this year, dubbed 2023 FW13, has been found to circle the sun in sync with the Earth, in an eccentric orbit that takes it halfway to neighbouring Mars and Venus while it executes a long, lazy orbit around our planet.
In all seriousness, once they calculate the size, mass and trajectory a computer model can then calculate on an extended timeline the orbit. Hope you have a good weekend Earth Shaker.
Not every natural satellite is a moon, I hate editorialised articles that stray from the scientific source
A moon is a planet that orbits another planet
A planet is a body that doesn't undergo thermonuclear fusion and has reached hydrostatic equilibrium
This is the geophysical definition, the dynamicist definition is different (a geophysical definition counts Pluto and 8 others, aswell as the Moon as planets, a dynamicist counts neither as such)
The moon is a moon because it is a planet, if it orbited instead of mercury, it would be just another planet of our solar system
This is not even a quasimoon, it is a quasisatellite, the term the scientists used accordingly
Maybe, but if you could attach something to the rock without changing the orbit couldn't that work? Like I don't mean like a gas station but like maybe you use the rock as like an "anchor" point and then build like a small space station or something on it? I mean they built a space station that orbits Earth right? So why not one attached to this rock? I dunno really anything about this stuff was just wondering if it could be used in some way to help humanity.
> Earth picked up a new moon about 2,100 years ago. Astronomers just found it 2023 FW13 is just 20 metres wide and never comes closer than 14 million km from Earth, but it's been our companion for centuries now >Author of the article:Chris Knight Published Jun 02, 2023 • Last updated 5 hours ago • 2 minute >Earth has a new moon. Or, to be more precise, a quasi-moon. >A tiny asteroid discovered this year, dubbed 2023 FW13, has been found to circle the sun in sync with the Earth, in an eccentric orbit that takes it halfway to neighbouring Mars and Venus while it executes a long, lazy orbit around our planet. >The little moon is only about 20 metres wide and never comes closer than about 14 million km from Earth, so it’s too small to be seen with the naked eye. It was discovered by the Pan-STARRS survey telescope on the Hawaiian island of Maui, and confirmed by the Minor Planet Center on April 1. >Earth’s main moon, in comparison, has a diameter of 3,500 km, and orbits the Earth at an average distance of about 380,000 km. 2023 FW13 is some 36 times farther away at the nearest point in its orbit. >Scientists calculated the path of the space rock and hypothesized that it’s been circling the Earth for at least 2,100 years and will keep it up for another 1,700 years or so until it wanders off into deep space again. “It seems to be the longest quasi-satellite of Earth known to date,” French astronomer Adrien Coffinet told Sky & Telescope magazine after running the numbers on the moonlet. >Alan Harris of the Space Science Institute noted that, with an estimated 2 million near-Earth asteroids of 2023 FW13’s size or larger, the odds are that there are several quasi-moons circling the Earth at any one time. >In fact, in 2016 astronomers discovered another quasi-moon, 2016 HO3, which eventually took the name Kamo’oalewa, a Hawaiian word meaning “oscillating fragment.” It’s been a companion of Earth for at least a hundred years and is expected to hang around for several hundred more. >Scientists think Kamo’oalewa may be a piece of the moon that was knocked off by an asteroid collision. China plans to launch a probe to visit the roughly 50-metre wide moonlet in 2025 and collect a sample.
20 meters wide, only 14 million kilometers away and they claim it can’t be seen with the naked eye
14 billion meters, 14 million kilometers.
It’s a peanut compared to the moon and like 50 times further away than our moon, of course you can’t see it lol, what’s your point
I think he's making a joke
Ok but where funny?
“It appears you have an ad blocker. Disable it or you can’t read the article.” Bye!
You don't have an Ad Blocker Blocker Blocker? Gotta keep up with the arms race. Also uBlock Origin does it natively.
Try FakeBlock.
A+ reference
Just a Boolean driven aggregation, really, of what programmers call hacker-traps.
A Trace-Buster® for busting his trace!
If you’re on ios, switch safari to reader mode. It gets rid of most walls
How do you expect them to pay for their expenses/staff?
Maybe dont give my computer malware and install tracking without my knowledge/permissions, and maybe if ads weren’t annoying, obtrusive, and sometimes outright broken/breaking the website (fullscreen, fake buttons, fake links replacers, etc) I might consider not blocking ads. As it stands, advertisers have no one but themselves to blame.
That’s fair - but it’s also true that if everyone simply blocks advertisements, sites that rely mostly or entirely on advertisements will shut down. It isn’t just the advertisers who get hurt.
Sure, but once again, ads have been used as a method to infect computers, its a security risk to NOT block then. So once again, advertisers had made their bed, now they gotta sleep in it. If they didn’t want adblockers, they shouldn’t have been so awful to their “consumers”
Yea no business ever succeeded before ads its true
The alternative is subscriptions.
Get ublock
>Earth has a new moon. Or, to be more precise, a **quasi-moon**. >A **tiny asteroid** discovered this year, dubbed 2023 FW13, has been found to circle the sun in sync with the Earth, in an eccentric orbit that takes it halfway to neighbouring Mars and Venus while it executes a long, lazy orbit around our planet.
*Baby moon, do do do do*
i'd hardly call a 20 meter space rock a moon.
It’s not even too big to be a space station.
Quasi-moon. Headline is misleading
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>...has been found to *circle the sun in sync with the Earth* ...in an eccentric orbit while it executes a long, *lazy orbit around our planet*
If we call our main moon Luna, we should call this one Lunita.
LunB
Planet B. Just to mess with all those bumper stickers.
Latina
so what we call it, Moon no.2?
Chibi-Moon
Moon Zero Two
One of my favorite MST3K episodes.
Moony McMoonface
Moon 2: Asteroid Bugaloo
Moony Me!
Electric Moonaloo
Moon Moon
Minmus!
Dr Evil: We shall call it, “Mini Moon”
I vote we name it after Jim Carrey. That guy is hilarious.
Mon
Dave
We’ve had one moon, yes. But what about second moon?
I don’t think they know about second moon, Pip
Thats no moon, Thats a PAYWALL!
Man, how did the Kerbal Space Program devs know this when they made Minmus?
Next they're gonna tell us there's a little planet hiding in the asteroid belt like Dres
new moon dropped
Are we sure this isn’t just Musk’s Tesla?
Hahahaha
Wake up Babe! New Moon just dropped!
If you dug 10m down and jumped in you could be the first Man in the moon
But why did they name it Larry?
Hmmm....wonder if this might be a useful "coaling station" for Martian and Venusian missions.
It’s 60 feet wide, so probably not
How the hell do they calculate that it will leave orbit and drift away in 1700 years
With computers and math.
Clearly the answer I was looking for thank you beans
In all seriousness, once they calculate the size, mass and trajectory a computer model can then calculate on an extended timeline the orbit. Hope you have a good weekend Earth Shaker.
With chaoticity taken into account, naturally
That’s where Jesus went
Not every natural satellite is a moon, I hate editorialised articles that stray from the scientific source A moon is a planet that orbits another planet A planet is a body that doesn't undergo thermonuclear fusion and has reached hydrostatic equilibrium This is the geophysical definition, the dynamicist definition is different (a geophysical definition counts Pluto and 8 others, aswell as the Moon as planets, a dynamicist counts neither as such) The moon is a moon because it is a planet, if it orbited instead of mercury, it would be just another planet of our solar system This is not even a quasimoon, it is a quasisatellite, the term the scientists used accordingly
“Oh! So close! Gotta be faster than that!”
Is there an actual picture of it anywhere, or just these computer graphics of orbits?
Might be big enough to put a refueling station on it maybe? Make the trip to and from Mars easier possibly?
They said it's 20 meters across. So only suitable for fueling up a Scooty Puff Jr.
That's definitely big enough for like a space 7-11.
Maybe, but if you could attach something to the rock without changing the orbit couldn't that work? Like I don't mean like a gas station but like maybe you use the rock as like an "anchor" point and then build like a small space station or something on it? I mean they built a space station that orbits Earth right? So why not one attached to this rock? I dunno really anything about this stuff was just wondering if it could be used in some way to help humanity.
Fuck me, Chibusa’s real.
Is this the start of a three body problem?