The Last Sphere-2 by MagikUnicorn
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Description
Bryce Art
S P A C E ☼ N E W S
An asteroid recently discovered by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) may be a bit of an oddball. Most near-Earth asteroids -- NEAs for short -- have eccentric, or egg-shaped, orbits that take the asteroids right through the inner solar system. The new object, designated 2010 SO16, is different. Its orbit is almost circular such that it cannot come close to any other planet in the solar system except Earth.
However, even though the asteroid rides around with Earth, it never gets that close.
"It keeps well away from Earth," said Apostolos "Tolis" Christou, who, together with David Asher of the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland, analyzed the orbit of the body after it was discovered in infrared images taken by WISE. "So well, in fact, that it has likely been in this orbit for several hundred thousand years, never coming closer to our planet than 50 times the distance to the moon."
The asteroid is one of a few that trace out a horseshoe shape relative to Earth. As the asteroid approaches Earth, the planet's gravity causes the object to shift back into a larger orbit that takes longer to go around the sun than Earth. Alternately, as Earth catches up with the asteroid, the planet's gravity causes it to fall into a closer orbit that takes less time to go around the sun than Earth.
The asteroid therefore never completely passes our planet. This slingshot-like effect results in a horseshoe-shaped path as seen from Earth, in which 2010 SO16 takes 175 years to get from one end of the horseshoe to the other.
"The origins of this object could prove to be very interesting," said Amy Mainzer of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., the principal investigator of NEOWISE, which is the asteroid- and comet-hunting portion of the WISE survey mission. "We are really excited that the astronomy community is already finding treasures in the NEOWISE data that have been released so far."
Thanks
Magik
Comments (58)
UteBigSmile
RodolfoCiminelli
A wonderful and very creative realization my friend....!!!
adrie
Fabulous work on this great image MU as always excellent done, love the reflections.
rainbows
A wonderful work, dear Magik. Excellent. Hugs. Di. xx
renecyberdoc
amazing i imagine sometimes what when all the "strings"let loos??????????
flaviok
Excelente meu amigo, aplausos (5)
jmb007
qui va gagner??
Flint_Hawk
This is great!
jendellas
Great to see the Bots close up!!!
drifterlee
This is really cool, Magik!
ia-du-lin
cool work, nice colors and reflections
flavia49
splendid composition and work!
Pierrot_Lunaire
Excellent!!
carlx
SUPERB!!!
moochagoo
une partie de croquet avec des boules trop grandes ? :)
sandra46
great work
bebopdlx
Cool
mikeerson
I see your robots are still trying to figure out which one of them is going to move it... or..... maybe..... that damn thing is so heavy both of these bots are looking at each other and questioning - are you ready? LOL
jocko500
this is super cool here
Madbat
Hey, it's about time you brought these dudes back, they're my faves! I read that article on Science Daily, apparently we have a few of those kind of trailing asteroids.
lyron
Fantastic image!!!
tennesseecowgirl
Terrific work!
npauling
A super image and those spheres look amazing.
Cosme..D..Churruca
superbe and interesting news!
fredster66
Again - COOL!!
neoexcello
So cool it makes me crazy
myrrhluz
This is marvelous! I love the reflections and the spheres getting larger and larger in the distance. Wonderful colors, detail, composition, and depth.
djescapes
nice