New Moon, UFO, or space junk now in orbit of Earth

science.nasa.gov...

Interesting article, though it might be interesting to those out there, with all the near miss and 'objects' falling to earth.

Sept. 20, 2002: Something odd is circling our planet. It's small, perhaps only 60-ft long, and rotates once every minute or so. Amateur astronomer Bill Yeung first spotted the 16th magnitude speck of light on Sept. 3rd in the constellation Pisces. He named it J002E3. Automated asteroid surveys scan the skies every few weeks, yet there was no sign of Yeung's object earlier this year. "It must have entered Earth orbit recently," says Paul Chodas of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program at JPL. "But it doesn't match any recently-launched spacecraft."

In other words, it's a mystery.

Is it s UFO or......

Could it be an alien spaceship? "If it is," says Chodas, "the aliens aren't good pilots. J002E3 is in a chaotic orbit. It loops around Earth once every 48 days or so, coming as close to our planet as the Moon and ranging as far away as two lunar distances." There's no evidence that the speck is moving under its own power. The orbit is constantly changing because of gravitational perturbations by the Sun and Moon.

but did they take it too Earl Schieb for a paint job?

It was a good idea, except for the paint.

At first glance, J002E3 would seem to be from Apollo 14. That mission began in January of 1971, and according to Chodas' calculations J002E3 broke out of Earth orbit in March of the same year. There's a problem, though: NASA has accounted for all the big pieces of the Apollo 14 spacecraft. None are missing.




Space junk it may be, but.....you never know.


[edit on 22-12-2004 by esdad71]

Have you noticed that this article was written in 2002? It is still an interesting read, but it makes me wonder about something: the article says that J002E3 should leave earth orbit again in 2003. Has it? Does anyone know now where it is?

J002E3
Thought to be the third (S-IVB) stage of the Apollo 12 Saturn V (SA-507) this was discovered in Sep 2002 by Bill Yeung having become caught in the Earth's gravitational field earlier in the year. It was followed until 28 May 2003 when it once again returned to heliocentric orbit and went out of sight for Earth based observers.



www.birtwhi.demon.co.uk...

It seems this object is no longer orbiting the earth.

[edit on 23-12-2004 by MKULTRA]

Thank you for the responses, but I understand it is no longer orbiting, howeverIt could return and probably will.

I was curious that could it this time come back with a little more force, not be stopped by gravitational pull and be a cool light show. I beleive it would burn up, right?

I guess it suprises me each time i see a photo or something on TV about how many objects are up there....

it seems to as you say reappear and disapar at timed intervals that is prof enough for me that it is being controlled maybe not by aliens but by man possibly traveling deeper into space then coming bak for supplies