posted
Here's the Sky and Telescope article about it. It's only about 1 meter across, and is due to wander back out into the solar system this fall, but it's done two loops already, and is supposed to do one more before we lose it. Pretty neat! Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
I wish we could launch a mission to rendezvous with it and strap a sensor array to it before it heads back on its way.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Couldn't we just take any old rock into space with a sensor array strapped to and see where it goes?
Posts: 684 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Noemon, couldn't less applied energy launch a satellite in that orbit than it would take to rendevous with the moonlet? A rendevous just wouldn't be optimal.
Assuming it would even be an interesting orbit for exploration.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
We should make some more mini-moons. I bet the moon gets lonely, and it would be cool to have another one or two, so it would feel like we're living in a fantasy book.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
I don't want detritus, I want a couple more full-sized moons to create magical confluences and foretell dark portents.
No dark lord is going to rise to power because the international space station reaches apogee. Get with the program!
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: I don't want detritus, I want a couple more full-sized moons to create magical confluences and foretell dark portents.
quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: We should make some more mini-moons. I bet the moon gets lonely, and it would be cool to have another one or two, so it would feel like we're living in a fantasy book.
posted
Sorry, by mini-moons, I intended they be not quite the size of our current moon, as to not completely hose the tides up, but still largish, which is as accurate as I'm willing to be.
If the 1-meter rock has portents to deliver, it shall deliver them. At best, space junk we put up there might tell us about a robot uprising, but you're going to have to keep track of thousands of pieces of detritus in relation to the phases of the moon, the current robot-anger level, the fuel levels of the shuttle's main tank... it's a lot of bookkeeping, and frankly I'd rather just leave that to the robots to work out themselves.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
I do not welcome our new 1-meter overlord, and shake my fist insolently at it. I ain't asceered of no 1-meter moon! *shakes fist*
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: Sorry, by mini-moons, I intended they be not quite the size of our current moon, as to not completely hose the tides up, but still largish, which is as accurate as I'm willing to be.
Anything in an Earth orbit even remotely on the scale of our moon will seriously mess with the tides. You can't have it both ways.
I suggest that the two mini-moons be named Timor and Belior. Or maybe one can be T'Kuht.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: Anything in an Earth orbit even remotely on the scale of our moon will seriously mess with the tides.
Yeah, but it would be SO COOL to have two moons in the sky. SO COOL enough to forget about the awful side-effects until after the start happening.
Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
I prefer 3 moons, 1 red, 1 white, and 1 small one thats black.
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posted
It wouldn't have to have the mass of our moon - that would be kind of hard to get hold of anyway, it's something on the order of a fourth of the Earth's mass. Make it out of thin plastic, instead - a ping-pong ball that size of the moon, or a little smaller. With some internal struts to prevent it collapsing under its own weight, to be sure. It would still be pretty heavy, but probably not enough to mess up the tides. Finance it by selling ad space.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I sit corrected - I was remembering the diameter ratio as the mass ratio. But anyway, the point remains that you can't very well dig up one-eightieth of the Earth.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Of course you can't. Instead, you go find an astroid about the right size, round it off, and drop it in an appropiate orbit. Or, dig up a chunk of Mars, if you'd prefer a red moon. Digging up a chunk of the earth would be just silly.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Why don't we just cut the moon we already have in half? Then paint a happy face on the flat side of one half and a sad face on the flat side of the other. Talk about portending!
posted
I must say I rather doubt that you can even move something one-eightieth the mass of the Earth (with current technology) in less than a few centuries. Good luck calculating the math of that orbit. But in any case there ain't no such asteroid; the largest, Ceres, has a diameter of 950 km, rather less than one-third that of the moon. Although I suppose you could orbit it closer and get some disc size back.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Because everyone else's suggestions have been so practical. Anyway, they said they wanted mini-moons.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: I don't want detritus, I want a couple more full-sized moons to create magical confluences and foretell dark portents.
No dark lord is going to rise to power because the international space station reaches apogee. Get with the program!
Actually, that gives me an idea for a short story. Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I must say I rather doubt that you can even move something one-eightieth the mass of the Earth (with current technology) in less than a few centuries.
No need to. Just move everything else closer to the object. Problem solved!
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I must say I rather doubt that you can even move something one-eightieth the mass of the Earth (with current technology) in less than a few centuries. Good luck calculating the math of that orbit. But in any case there ain't no such asteroid; the largest, Ceres, has a diameter of 950 km, rather less than one-third that of the moon. Although I suppose you could orbit it closer and get some disc size back.
Oh I think a second moon that is 1/3 the diameter of our current moon would work quite well. And I'm not convinced that technology necessary to move Ceres into a near earth orbit is necessarily more advanced than the technology for building a moon sized ping pong ball in orbit.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: And I'm not convinced that technology necessary to move Ceres into a near earth orbit is necessarily more advanced than the technology for building a moon sized ping pong ball in orbit.
But a moon-sized ping-pong ball is so much cooler! It's a much more elegant solution than brute-force moving rocks around, any nuclear power can do that given enough time.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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