[meteorite-list] Piece of the Moon Orbiting Earth?

From: Mike Groetz <mpg444_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 10:03:50 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <364211.43082.qm_at_web32904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

>From the article...

"Although its origin is unknown, one plausible
explanation is that it could be material
ejected off the Moon by an impact. Consequently, any
observations that can constrain its
origin are very important."

http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroids/6R10DB9/html/6R10DB9_planning.html

Background

6R10DB9 was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey
(University of Arizona) in September, 2006.
It is only a few meters in diameter and it is
currently orbiting Earth as a temporary satellite.
It is making its fourth and final revolution about
Earth and will return to solar orbit later
in the summer. This is a type of object that has been
predicted theoretically but, until
now, never observed.

6R10DB9 is small enough that solar radiation pressure
is perturbing its motion perceptibly.
According to Paul Chodas in JPL's Solar System
Dynamics Group, the magnitude of the perturbations
is consistent with expectations for a rocky object but
not with old flight hardware, so this
is probably a natural object.

Although its origin is unknown, one plausible
explanation is that it could be material
ejected off the Moon by an impact. Consequently, any
observations that can constrain its
origin are very important.

6R10DB9 will approach within 0.7 lunar distances (!)
on June 14 when it will be a strong
radar target. This is the closest and smallest
asteroid that we have ever attempted to observe.

Goldstone observations are scheduled on June 12, 14,
and 17.
Arecibo is offline for maintenance and cannot observe
it.

Due to the asteroid's very short round-trip time, all
the observations will be bistatic, using
DSS-13 as a receiver on June 12 and 14 and (due to a
scheduling conflict) DSS-25 on June 17.

Photometry obtained in March by Tomasz Kwiatkowski et
al. using the 10-m South African
Large Telescope revealed a rotation period of 2.75
minutes and a large lightcurve amplitude
of 1.2 mag. Consequently, this object may be quite
elongated.

6R10DB9 will move about 120 degrees during the
interval spanned by our observations,
so we may see bandwidth changes from night to night.




 
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Received on Thu 14 Jun 2007 01:03:50 PM PDT