Icarus<\/a><\/em>. <\/p>\nUsing the Jade supercomputer at the National Computer Center for Higher Education (Centre Informatique National de l\u2019Enseignement Sup\u00e9rieur, or CINES) at Montpelier, France, the team calculated the probability of a mini moon being captured by Earth’s gravity.<\/p>\n
The Jade supercomputer simulated 10 million asteroids passing by the Earth and tracked the trajectories of 18,000 objects subsequently captured in the Earth’s gravitational force. Jeremie Vaubaillon of the Paris Observatory claimed, “This was one of the largest and longest computations I\u2019ve ever done.” He added, “If you were to try to do this on your home computer, it would take about six years.”<\/p>\n
Conclusions drawn at the time anticipated crazy, complicated paths of a captured mini moon due to its anticipated small size and tug-of-war power struggles between gravitational forces of the Earth, Moon, and Sun. The scientists reported, “While the typical minimoon would orbit Earth for about nine months, some of them could orbit our planet for decades.”<\/p>\nEarth captures a mini moon<\/strong>. The path of a simulated minimoon that is temporarily captured by Earth. The object approaches Earth from the right along the yellow line and continues on its trajectory along the orange path and finally escapes capture along the red path to the upper right. The size of Earth and the Moon are not to scale but the size of the minimoon\u2019s path is to scale in the Earth-Moon system. \nInset<\/strong>: Radar image of near-Earth asteroid 1999 JM8 made with NASA\u2019s Goldstone Solar System Radar in California and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico by a team of astronomers led by Dr. Lance Benner of NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Minimoons are captured from the much larger population of near-Earth asteroids that pass close to Earth. This two-mile-diameter asteroid is more than a thousand times larger than the biggest minimoons, but it shows the irregular shape and pockmarked surface expected on the much smaller minimoons. Credit: UH IFA<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n“Mini Moons are Scientifically Extremely Interesting”<\/h3>\n In 2006, Mini Moon 2006 RH120 was discovered by the University of Arizona\u2019s Catalina Sky Survey. Roughly the size of a passenger car, 2006 RH120 orbited the Earth for less than a year following its discovery and was last seen shooting for the Sun.<\/p>\n
NASA’s Paul Chodas also recalls the brief visitation of Mini Moon 2003 YN107, which followed a similar orbital pattern as our present companion, 2016 HO3. “This new asteroid is much more locked onto us,” states Chodas.<\/p>\n
Robert Jedicke of University of Hawaii at Manoa says, “Mini moons are scientifically extremely interesting.” He explains, “A mini moon could someday be brought back to Earth, giving us a low-cost way to examine a sample of material that has not changed much since the beginning of our solar system over 4.6 billion years ago.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First discovered by University of Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS 1 telescope on April 27, 2016, Earth’s new moon, or “mini moon” has been officially confirmed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Officially named “2016 HO3,” the newly discovered asteroid is dubbed a “mini moon” because it not only orbits the Sun–it orbits Earth, as well. Although NASA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":183,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,38],"tags":[41945,3188,3215,22545,41942,41943,23760,24282,41946,32781,41944],"spectra_custom_meta":{"icopyright_hide_toolbar":[null],"_edit_lock":["1469095668:183"],"_edit_last":["183"],"_oembed_800b50dd98f97c7b42d57ef0f9a91437":["{{unknown}}"],"_oembed_7a0ffaeab2b42b8ba40b61a1104056d6":["