{"id":1460,"date":"2014-01-06T18:50:13","date_gmt":"2014-01-06T23:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.carlrobitaille.org\/2014\/01\/06\/videotitle-3\/"},"modified":"2018-11-08T12:10:53","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T17:10:53","slug":"what-goes-around-comes-around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.carlrobitaille.org\/?p=1460","title":{"rendered":"What goes around, comes around"},"content":{"rendered":"

"So, the most likely explanation seems to be that J002E3 is the third stage of the rocket for Apollo 12.\u00a0 NASA had originally planned to shoot this into an orbit around the Sun.\u00a0 But it seems that venting the remaining propellant did not give this rocket stage enough energy to escape the Earth\u2013Moon system.\u00a0\u00a0 So, this stage ended up in a semi-stable orbit around the Earth after passing by the Moon on November 18, 1969."<\/p>\n

Google+ reshared post<\/b><\/p>\n

What goes around, comes around<\/b><\/p>\n

On September 3, 2002, an amateur astronomer Bill Yeung looked into his telescope and discovered a strange object near Earth.\u00a0 Experts were surprised to discover that it was in an orbit around Earth!\u00a0 The orbit was unstable, which meant this object had entered into Earth orbit very recently.\u00a0 But there was no recently launched spacecraft that matched the orbit of this thing!<\/p>\n

It got the name J002E3<\/b>.\u00a0 It’s fun to watch how it came in from the Lagrange point L1<\/b> between the Earth and Sun, went around the Earth a few times, and then got kicked out.<\/p>\n

But what was it?<\/p>\n

University of Arizona astronomers found that its electromagnetic spectrum was consistent with white titanium dioxide paint – the same paint used by NASA for the Saturn V rockets. Tracing back its orbit, they found that it had probably been orbiting the Sun for 31 years.\u00a0 The last time it was near Earth was1971.<\/p>\n

This seemed to suggest that it was a part of the Apollo 14 mission. But NASA knew the whereabouts of all hardware used for this mission!\u00a0 The third stage of that rocket, for example, was deliberately crashed into the Moon for seismic studies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, the most likely explanation seems to be that J002E3 is the third stage of the rocket for Apollo 12.\u00a0 NASA originally planned to shoot this into an orbit around the Sun.\u00a0 But they used more of the propellant than planned, and it seems that venting the rest didn’t give this rocket stage enough energy to escape the Earth\u2013Moon system.\u00a0\u00a0 So, it ended up in a complicated around the Earth after passing by the Moon on November 18, 1969.<\/p>\n

It may hit earth someday! \u00a0 It weighs 10 tonnes.\u00a0 But don’t worry: a 10-tonne meteor hits the Earth every few years, and most of them don’t cause much trouble.<\/p>\n

I saw this animated gif without much explanation last night on G+.\u00a0 Who should I thank?\u00a0\u00a0 The explanation here is adapted from Wikipedia:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/J002E3<\/a><\/p>\n

and the animated gif was made by Paul Chodas & Ron Baalke of NASA.<\/p>\n

#astronomy<\/a> \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Import\u00e9 de Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

"So, the most likely explanation seems to be that J002E3 is the third stage of the rocket for Apollo 12.\u00a0 NASA had originally planned to shoot this into an orbit around the Sun.\u00a0 But it seems that venting the remaining … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.carlrobitaille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.carlrobitaille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.carlrobitaille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.carlrobitaille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.carlrobitaille.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1460"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.carlrobitaille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1496,"href":"https:\/\/blog.carlrobitaille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460\/revisions\/1496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.carlrobitaille.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.carlrobitaille.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.carlrobitaille.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}