{"id":2116,"date":"2016-11-29T23:54:10","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T03:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/?p=2116"},"modified":"2016-11-29T23:54:10","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T03:54:10","slug":"2016-ho3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/?p=2116","title":{"rendered":"2016 HO3"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"float: left; padding-right: 30px;\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 5px;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 5px;\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"580\" height=\"326\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SbbAnVU4rmY\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 5px;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/(469219)_2016_HO3\">Wikipedia<\/a> dixit:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As it orbits Sol, (469219) 2016 HO3 appears to circle around Earth as well. The object is beyond the Hill sphere of Earth, meaning that the Sun exerts a stronger pull on it than Earth does. Although it is too distant to be considered a true natural satellite of Earth, it is the best and most stable example to date of a near-Earth companion, or quasi-satellite.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Since 2016 HO3 loops around our planet, but never ventures very far away as we both go around the sun, we refer to it as a quasi-satellite of Earth,&#8221; said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA&#8217;s Center for Near-Earth Object (NEO) Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;One other asteroid &#8212; 2003 YN107 &#8212; followed a similar orbital pattern for a while over 10 years ago, but it has since departed our vicinity. This new asteroid is much more locked onto us. Our calculations indicate 2016 HO3 has been a stable quasi-satellite of Earth for almost a century, and it will continue to follow this pattern as Earth&#8217;s companion for centuries to come.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In its yearly trek around the sun, asteroid 2016 HO3 spends about half of the time closer to the sun than Earth is (that is, the asteroid is inside the Earth&#8217;s orbit) and passes ahead of our planet, and about half of the time farther away (crosses outside Earth&#8217;s orbit), causing it to fall behind. Its orbit is also tilted a little, causing it to bob up and then down once each year through Earth&#8217;s orbital plane. In effect, this small asteroid is caught in a game of leap frog with Earth that will last for hundreds of years.<\/p>\n<p>The asteroid&#8217;s orbit also undergoes a slow, back-and-forth twist over multiple decades. &#8220;The asteroid&#8217;s loops around Earth drift a little ahead or behind from year to year, but when they drift too far forward or backward, Earth&#8217;s gravity is just strong enough to reverse the drift and hold onto the asteroid so that it never wanders farther away than about 100 times the distance of the moon,&#8221; said Chodas. &#8220;The same effect also prevents the asteroid from approaching much closer than about 38 times the distance of the moon. In effect, this small asteroid is caught in a little dance with Earth.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Asteroid 2016 HO3 was first spotted on April 27, 2016, by the Pan-STARRS 1 asteroid survey telescope on Haleakal\u0101, Hawaii, operated by the University of Hawaii&#8217;s Institute for Astronomy and funded by NASA&#8217;s Planetary Defense Coordination Office. The size of this object has not yet been firmly established, but it is likely about 40\u2013100 m (130\u2013330 ft).&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Video credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 5px;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As it orbits Sol, (469219) 2016 HO3 appears to circle around Earth as well. The object is beyond the Hill sphere of Earth, meaning that the Sun exerts a stronger pull on it than Earth does. Although it is too distant to be considered a true natural satellite of Earth, it is the best and most stable example to date of a near-Earth companion, or quasi-satellite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[391,1,463],"tags":[551,21],"class_list":["post-2116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","category-space-exploration","category-videos","tag-2016-ho3","tag-nasa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2117,"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116\/revisions\/2117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}