How Many Natural Satellites Have Earth?
By Diana Ungureanu / Chisinau / Moldova.ORG/ -- American astronomers have made a sensational discovery, the Earth could have several natural satellites and this happens regularly.
So that a period of ten months between 2006 and 2007, Terra has been holding two natural satellites, the Moon and an asteroid, which being attracted of the Earth gravity force, has rotated around our planet for 10 months after it was removed.
An American team of astronomers from the Cornell University asserts that the Moon, which we all know, would not be the only natural satellite of Earth: our planet can have at any time, at least another one Moon! Although these small satellites are present only on a temporarily, the scientific importance of the discovery is exceptional.
Michael Granvik, Jeremie Vaubaillon and Robert Jedicke, researchers at Cornell University have calculated the number of natural satellites with irregular attendance, which are captured temporarily by the gravitational field of the Earth.
According to the first observations on this strange phenomenon, these asteroids turned into natural satellites for a time appear and disappear rather frequently, often not being detected.
The majority of asteroids temporarily turned into satellites remain around the Earth for a time period of approximately 10 months, after which they move away.
The discovery is important, because these asteroids which come so close to Earth could be easily explored, within the framework of short-term missions, yielding a significant volume of data about the formation of the solar system.
So that the Earth is attractive not only for living beings (people, aliens), but, behold, it attracts with its splendor and celestial bodies; we hope that these celestial bodies remain, however, at reasonable distances of Earth.
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