Earth's Mini-Moons


Wednesday, 28 March 2012 3:30 p.m. — 4 p.m. MST

AURA Lecture Hall

NOIRLab South Colloquia
Robert Jedicke (Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii)

Everyone knows that the Earth has one natural satellite - the Moon; but they are wrong.  We show that the Earth has many small natural satellites captured from the near-Earth object population of asteroids and comets and that at any time there is another natural object as big as one-meter diameter in orbit around the Earth in addition to the Moon.