[thechat] Earth's other moon

[javier velasco]

What!? amazing, thanks judah.

Judah McAuley wrote:
>
> Wandering around a bit today on the web, I noticed an announcement
> saying that an object in a near earth orbit had been found.  They aren't
> quite sure what it is (spent rocket casing, asteroid, etc) but they
> mentioned that if it is determined to be of natural material, it will
> become Earth's *3rd* "moon".  Obviously I wondered, "the Earth has a
> second moon?".  I figured that would be something that I would have
> heard about.  Turns out that I didn't hear about it, but we do have
> another celestial body in a stable orbit around the Earth.  It's called
> Cruithne (pronounced croo-een-ya) and its an odd duck because not only
> does it orbit the Earth, it orbits in a horseshoe shape.
>
> Great page devoted to it:
> http://www.astro.queensu.ca/~wiegert/3753/3753.html
>
> It's amazing what kinds of things just don't make the news.  This will
> be cocktail trivia for me for quite some time.