[ad_1]
First name: (101429) 1998 VF31 (AKA: the Moon’s Sister).
Age: 4.5 billion years, give or take.
Appearance: Lunar.
Twinned with: The moon.
I didn’t know the moon had brothers. Nobody did. This, an asteroid about 1 km in diameter, was hiding behind Mars the whole time.
And how relative to the moon? They seem to be made of the same stuff.
How would anyone know that? Spectroscopic observation.
What does it mean? It means they looked at it with a very large telescope, known as the Very Large Telescope, located in the Atacama Desert in Chile.
And what did they discover? “Simply put, it’s the same color as the moon,” said astronomer Dr Apostolos Christou, lead author of a new study conducted by the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium (AOP).
The same color? Can’t they find a more scientific explanation? Detailed spectral analysis suggests that the asteroid is rich in pyroxene and iron – “almost a dead ring for the parts of the moon where the bedrock is exposed,” according to Galin Borisov, an AOP astrochemist.
Thanks. How could we have missed this? What else is lurking on the back of Mars? In fact, it was discovered in 1998. It is one of the Trojans in orbit with Mars.
Trojan? Celestial objects grouped around the “Lagrange points”, that is, suspended in equilibrium between the gravitational fields of Mars and the sun.
And are there any other Trojans of this type? Yes, but the others seem to be related to each other. This is different.
It is our long lost second moon! More precisely, it is perhaps a small part of our moon that broke away and became trapped in the Martian orbit.
Who cares? We want it back! Where do you put it?
We will put him back on the moon! It might be difficult.
And we want a better name for it than (101429) 1998 VF31. What do you suggest?
Moon 2. It is not going very well.
Chip Off the Old Moon. Nor is that.
Well, we can fix the denomination later, once we tow her here. In fact, it’s possible – and perhaps even more likely – that this particular Trojan is a fragment of Mars itself.
Now you tell me. Sorry.
Of: “It’s a lifeless piece of toxic red earth in the middle of nowhere. We give six votes from the constituency. “
Do not say: “And the winner is: Moony McMoonface.”
Source link
