[meteorite-list] Earth Trojan asteroids
From: Francis Graham <francisgraham_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Jun 24 18:21:03 2005 Message-ID: <20050624222102.80671.qmail_at_web54706.mail.yahoo.com> MOON Trojan objects exist. They are the Kordylewski clouds, small faint patches of dust, at the L4 and L5 points of the Earth-Moon system (not Earth-sun system). The Kordylewski clouds have been photographed, and have even been seen by the naked eye under total dark skies. They may be variable in their mass and integrated visual magnitude. Very little has been studied about them, very little is known about their possible variability, nobody has anything like a reflectance spectrum of the dust. They remain the closest things about which so little is known. They could well be the subject of study of any of you who wish to make a contribution to science. One thing is known: unless you are under skies so dark the Milky Way is a BRILLIANT band of light, and the Gegenschein is easy, and the zodiacal light is an obvious swath, unless you are under those kinds of dark skies, you have NO hope of seeing the Kordylewski clouds. Francis Graham --- MexicoDoug_at_aol.com wrote: > Hola Rob, > > Wouldn't that be <= 2/3's (gibbous) phase = about > 66% illumination, and a > maximum average sky angle of a comfortable,high 60 > degrees max observed angle > (+/- the "oscillation") ... checking they're > equilateral triangles, though > intuition might be wrong? > Saludos, Doug > > En un mensaje con fecha 06/23/2005 6:21:15 PM > Mexico Daylight Time, > ROBERT.D.MATSON_at_saic.com escribe: > Certainly astronomers have tried, but small objects > at L4 and L5 > would be hard to see due to a combination of range > (150 million > km), poorer phase angle, and a maximum sky > elevation of perhaps 45 > degrees at astronomical twilight -- lower when the > sky is darker. > It would be an interesting exercise to compute the > maximum size > an Earth Trojan could be and still have managed to > go undetected. > > --Rob > > ______________________________________________ > Meteorite-list mailing list > Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list > __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/ Received on Fri 24 Jun 2005 06:21:01 PM PDT |
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