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Strange Asteroids Follow Earth From 250 Thousand Years Ago


Apostolos christou and David Asher, an astronomer at the Armagh Observatory, Northern Ireland stated that the asteroid which some time ago discovered, turned out to have been following the Earth around the Sun with its own movements for at least 250 thousand years.
An asteroid named 2010 So16 which has a diameter of several hundred meters it is also the largest asteroid in the vicinity of Earth. It is estimated, this asteroid has a close relationship with the origin of planet Earth.
According to astronomers, it will continue to monitor the movement of the Earth at least for 100 thousand to millions of years into the future.
This finding themselves exposed in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
"Average distance of this asteroid to the Sun is identical to the distance of Earth to the Sun," said christou, as quoted dariCosmosmagazine, Monday, April 11, 2011.
"Interestingly, the asteroid's orbit is also very similar to Earth's orbit," he said.
However, the path taken is not the same strange asteroid with the Earth. In his journey around the Sun, he made a path shaped like a horseshoe or horseshoes.
"Asteroid 2010 So16 takes 175 years to complete the journey from one end to another on the path of the horse shoe," said christou.
In the horseshoe-shaped orbit, the asteroid will move closer and away from the earth without ever crossing the Earth. When approaching the Earth, 2010 SO16 will move slowly. Up to a certain distance from the Earth, the asteroid will again be attracted by the sun that turns from the original trajectory. Turning movement continues until the planet was behind the sun and came back to Earth from different sides.
"When the speed of the asteroid is balanced with the speed of the Earth, the Earth does not pull it," he said. "Not interested in asteroids by Earth's gravity to make the asteroid closer to the Sun and it makes So16 get extra speed."
When viewed from Earth, the pattern of movement back and forth asteroid will look like a horseshoe. However, if viewed from the perspective of asteroids, celestial bodies are moving in the same direction. The asteroid's orbital period is for 3.5 centuries.
Unique orbit of this asteroid is predicted will not last forever. Horseshoe orbit is an orbit of the unstable type so that a small attraction of other celestial bodies can disperse the orbit shape. But so far horseshoe orbit asteroid 2010 SO16 still solid with horseshoe trajectory is at least up to 120 thousand years.
Currently, the asteroid is located in one of the closest point to Earth. It is estimated, this asteroid can be seen in the coming decades.

Source : Sm

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Posted by Anggo82 on Tuesday, April 12, 2011. Filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Feel free to leave a response

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