Thanks Marco, See also: http://lcogt.net/en/blog/egomez/man-made-object-spotted-ftn The object will be visible in large telescopes for about the next 3 months as it passes through opposition a second time on August 20 when at a range of 0.016 AU. It is currently less than 0.005 AU distant. We shall have to wait for the nearly full moon to wane somewhat before more astrometry can be undertaken. This is needed in order to improve the accuracy of the orbit so that its position can be extrapolated back in time. Unfortunately an empty rocket stage is also subject to significant non-gravitational effects (radiation pressure from the sun) and so the extrapolation will have a residual error. Following its behaviour over the coming weeks should help to tie these effects down more accurately and therefore bring more certainty as to what the object is. Looking at lunar/interplanetary probes, I can only see the Russian Luna 23 sample return attempt in 1975 as the only possibility if for example the 4th stage went into orbit around the sun. However, could another possibility be a failed attempt to put a geostationary satellite into orbit? Richard Miles British Astronomical association ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marco Langbroek" <marco.langbroek@wanadoo.nl> To: "satelliet lijst (SeeSat)" <SeeSat-L@satobs.org> Sent: Friday, May 28, 2010 9:25 AM Subject: Asteroid 2010 KQ = '70-ies rocket stage > Hi all, > > JPL issued a press release that is interesting to us: > > Asteroid 2010 KQ, in an Earth-similar orbit, has been identified as quite > likely > an artificial object by means of orbital dynamics and astrometry. Could be > from > a '70's-era launch. More info on the link below. > > - Marco > > > http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news168.html > _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri May 28 2010 - 10:05:45 UTC