this might have bin posted before because it was easy to find but yes earth has well had a second moon discovered in 2002 on september 17th

earth's second moon
link will take you to the orbit of the second moon (well it should)

where has it gone?
will it come back?

(i dont think any one cares)

I care. These are the questions I ask myself everyday.

thanks for caring

...but it doesn't. Not when I clicked it anyway.

dead link...

oh sorry,
ill try and get the right link

try this link and click the JOO2E3 animation

second moon

It was a good idea, except for the paint.

That's what University of Arizona astronomers found on Sept. 12th when they measured the spectrum of sunlight reflected from J002E3. "The colors were consistent with ... white titanium dioxide paint--the type of paint NASA used on Apollo moon rockets 30 years ago," says Carl Hergenrother, who conducted the study with colleague Robert Whiteley.

Mystery object orbits earth

the new link does work, i tried it

so it isnt a second moon.

thanks for claering that up

hold on though, i got a theory.

if the object what i thought was the second moon but is, what you say, part of the apollo moon rocket how come, the object came towards earth from far out to the left.

someone please explain

Another possibility is that J002E3 is an S-IVB from Apollo 12. Unlike Apollo 14, Apollo 12's S-IVB did not crash into the Moon. The crew jettisoned it on Nov. 15, 1969, when it was nearly out of fuel. Once the astronauts were safely away, ground controllers ignited the S-IVB's engine. They meant to send the 60-ft-long tank into a Sun-centered orbit, but something went wrong; the burn lasted too long. Instead of circling the Sun, the S-IVB entered a barely-stable orbit around the Earth and Moon "much like the current orbit of J002E3," notes Chodas.

Eventually, the Apollo 12 S-IVB vanished - no one knows when. Perhaps gravitational tugs from the Sun and Moon accumulated until they nudged the engine away from Earth in 1971. In this scenario, it would have circled the Sun for 31 years until it was re-captured by Earth's gravity in 2002.

"It's plausible," says Chodas, "but still speculative."

Chodas himself notes "much like the current orbit of J002E3,"... For whatever reason Chodas, wants a MYSTERY... IMHO

thank you captian knowledge

Wow, that's really creepy.

What's strange is 1) the first time it approaches the earth/moon area, it sorta makes a right-hand turn halfway here, and 2) it speeds up and slows down over and over again as it's orbiting.

Is it supposed to do that?

Also that little black and white picture of it on that website doesn't really look like that piece of the rocket they're talking about. It looks a bit too skinny or something. Hmm...

i know, it is weird, i still dont know what to believe.



lets here some more opinions

I'm not an expert in astronomy, but I'm fairly sure all bodies (like comets and asteroids) with ecliptical orbits speed up when they come closer to the body they are orbiting due to gravitation. As for the right-hand turn, perhaps it was effect of Moon or some other space body gravitation, and seeing how unstable its orbit was, it's perhaps very, very small.

I may be wrong though.

Why are the links always broken? T_T

These links work fine for me.

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/j002e3a.html
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/20...steryobject.htm

So, what happened after 2003? Did it just disappear?

Chodas' calculations indicate that J002E3 will leave Earth again in June 2003 to resume its orbit around the Sun.

So, they just stopped tracking it? Or is the new data elsewhere? I didn't particularly like that crazy orbit, lol.

The best we can do is watch J002E3 from afar--an unresolved speck of light easily detected by 8" to 10" telescopes with CCD cameras. Where will it go next? Find out by visiting JPL's Near-Earth Object Program web site, which offers a helpful ephemeris for observers.