AW: [thechat] Earth's other moon

[Eike Pierstorff]

> > 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

http://www.astro.queensu.ca/~wiegert/3753/faq.html:

<quote>
Does asteroid 3753 Cruithne orbit the Earth like a moon or satellite?
No. The asteroid's behaviour is more complicated than that: it doesn't orbit
the Earth, but rather it shares the Earth's orbit. The relationship of a
moon to its planet is called a two-body because there are only two important
players (ie. the moon and the planet). However, in the case of Cruithne, the
Earth and the asteroid both share the same orbit about the Sun, but are
choreographed in such a away as to remain stable and avoid colliding with
each other. This is called a three-body relationship as there are three main
players: the Earth, the asteroid and the Sun. Please see the 3753 Cruithne
main page for more details on the asteroid's motion.
</quote>

Still people believed for a long time there was a second moon:
http://seds.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/hypo.html#moon2


> >
> > It's amazing what kinds of things just don't make the news.  This will
> > be cocktail trivia for me for quite some time.
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> I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for
> stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of
> everything and let the problem solve itself?