Originally posted by thefreepatriot
reply to post by mythatsabigprobe
the moon is not on the same orbit that this asteroid is on... I showed how far away the moon is in order to show that it is possible that the Asteroid can get caught by Earths gravitational field.. the same one holding the moon.. the moon just so happens to be in the right orbit . so that it does not fall onto us..an asteroid that is actually on a trajectory that crosses Earths path and i not in orbit around earth is way different..
Correction, the moon doesn't have the kinetic energy to escape the earth. Just because something CAN orbit the earth at such a distance does not mean that any given object that gets that close will ever be able to do so. Toutatis' orbit doesn't allow it to be captured, period. It wasn't captured in 2004, it won't be captured in 2012. Toutatis has an orbital velocity of 16.69 km/s versus earth's orbital velocity of 29.8km/s. That's a difference of over 13km/s: Earth's escape velocity is 11.2 km/s. Toutatis could never be captured by the Earth unless it aerobraked into orbit. That's not an easy maneuver for an object under intentional control, let alone for a coincidental encounter. Such a manuever would also ablate much of its mass making it far less dangerous. Will earth's gravity have an effect? Yes, but it's minimal for an object traveling so fast and relatively distant relative to the earth. The moon only orbits the earth at about 1km/s - that's how slow you'd have to be going to be in earth orbit at the distance of the moon.
[edit on 17-3-2008 by ngchunter]
