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Miniature Moons?

A curious news report from "Science News Yearbook 1970," Copyright 1970
Science Service
pp. 234-235.  Again, makes me wonder if these so-called "miniature moons"
are also lunar ejecta?

-------------------------------

MINIATURE MOONS

    The earth may have at least ten tiny natural satellites, said Dr, John
P. Bagby of Hughes Aircraft Co. in ICARUS (Vol. 10).
    For decades astronomers have speculated that the earth in its travels
through space might pick up small bodies and constrain them to orbit around
it.  From time to time sightings have been made of objects that might be
such satellites, and orbits have been computed for them.
    But, said Dr. Bagby, "the existence of such objects has never been
generally accepted...except for the Kordylewski Cloud satellites" (found by
K. Kordylewski of Krakow Observatory, Poland, in 1961).  Lately, however,
Dr. Bagby studied the orbital data published for artificial satellites and
found that these have repeatedly undergone sudden drastic changes in their
flight patterns.  He pointed out that these changes can be explained by near
collisions with the miniature natural satellites, and he found that the
changes occur near locations where the orbits of artificial satellites cross
those calculated for the natural ones.
    he therefore suggested that a group of sightings over recent years
represents at least ten small natural satellites.  When he traced their
history he found them all at the same spot on Dec. 18, 1955, and he surmised
from this that they all originated in one object that broke up on that
day.--30--





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