Why must journalists exaggerate every science headline?
Earth actually has two moons.
11–20 of 71 posts
Re: Earth actually has two moons.
#12Why must journalists exaggerate every science headline?
The irony is that the real headline is more exciting, which is that there is a specimen orbiting earth, just waiting to be brought back for inspection.
Re: Earth actually has two moons.
#13The article states that these 'moons' typically stay for around 10 months. Do they escape from the Earth's gravity or are they pulled closer to the Earth and eventually break up in the atmosphere?
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_RH120 :
2006 RH120 is a tiny near-Earth asteroid with a diameter of about five metres, which ordinarily orbits the Sun but makes close approaches to the Earth–Moon system every twenty years or so. Occasionally the object temporarily enters Earth orbit through temporary satellite capture (TSC).
Re: Earth actually has two moons.
#14This article should be called "Astronomers actually redefine the term moon"
If this is the definition, then lets also report that Saturn now has a gazillion moons.
Re: Earth actually has two moons.
#15This is the same team that announced the discovery of 14 previously unknown days in February, I take it.
Re: Earth actually has two moons.
#16On the other hand, the thing we call The Moon shouldn't really be considered a moon. The Earth/Moon system should really be classified as two planets in essentially the same orbit around the Sun. As I think was discussed recently in another thread here, and was pointed out by Isaac Asimov in one of his science essays a long time ago, if you were to plot the paths of the Earth and Moon through space, you'd find they a…
The Moon is a moon because the center of mass of the system is inside the Earth. It's as simple as that.
Re: Earth actually has two moons.
#17On the other hand, the thing we call The Moon shouldn't really be considered a moon. The Earth/Moon system should really be classified as two planets in essentially the same orbit around the Sun. As I think was discussed recently in another thread here, and was pointed out by Isaac Asimov in one of his science essays a long time ago, if you were to plot the paths of the Earth and Moon through space, you'd find they a…
Isn't the criteria for planethood having sufficient mass to be largely spherical? I thought the moon was oblong due to tidal locking with the Earth. I realize that the Earth isn't a sphere, but in that case it's due to the centripetal force of its rotation on its own mass, which I think gives it a pass.
Being "largely spherical" is (post-Pluto furore) a necessary but not sufficient condition for being deemed a planet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_planet
Re: Earth actually has two moons.
#18On the other hand, the thing we call The Moon shouldn't really be considered a moon. The Earth/Moon system should really be classified as two planets in essentially the same orbit around the Sun. As I think was discussed recently in another thread here, and was pointed out by Isaac Asimov in one of his science essays a long time ago, if you were to plot the paths of the Earth and Moon through space, you'd find they a…
Isn't that true for all moons, though, simply because the radius of the orbit around the sun is much larger than the radius of the moon around the planet? also, isn't the force ratio issue more an issue of the inverse square law than anything else?
From the point of view of the Sun, some satellites with short orbital periods might appear to move back and forth as they run around their planet. Earth's Moon, on the other hand, never moves backward from the point of view of the Sun.
That still wouldn't make the Moon a planet though.
Re: Earth actually has two moons.
#19This article should be called "Astronomers actually redefine the term moon" If this is the definition, then lets also report that Saturn now has a gazillion moons.
We do. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moons_of_Saturn
Re: Earth actually has two moons.
#20It doesn't feel right to call it a moon though. It's a natural satellite, but it's not that big.