{"id":34665,"date":"2021-11-17T11:53:20","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T17:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=34665"},"modified":"2021-11-17T11:53:20","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T17:53:20","slug":"cool-astro-junk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/11\/17\/cool-astro-junk\/","title":{"rendered":"Cool Astro Junk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In our orbit there&#8217;s not just us and the Moon, but also the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Apollo_asteroid\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Apollo asteroids<\/strong><\/a>, including this one:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>According to a new analysis, a chunk of rock that hangs out near Earth&#8217;s orbital path along the Sun seems to be made of the same material as\u00a0<a title=\"the Moon\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/moon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Moon<\/a>, suggesting that it broke off at some point to be flung into space. But how, and when, remains a mystery.<\/p>\n<p>The rock is named 469219 Kamo\u02bboalewa, and astronomers already found it interesting before this latest development.<\/p>\n<p>The object belongs to a class of asteroids known as the Apollo asteroids, which more or less share Earth&#8217;s orbit around the Sun; but Kamo\u02bboalewa is also what is known as a quasi-satellite, staying near Earth over long periods and multiple orbits.<\/p>\n<p>Kamo\u02bboalewa is small, just 46 to 58 meters or so in diameter (150 to 190 feet), and can only be seen in Earth&#8217;s sky for a few weeks every April. It wasn&#8217;t discovered until 2016, and learning more about it hasn&#8217;t been easy.<\/p>\n<p>In this most recent effort to learn more, researchers made use of one of the most powerful telescopes on Earth, the Large Binocular Telescope at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lbto.org\/\">Mount Graham International Observatory<\/a>. In 2017, they obtained observations that included the\u00a0<a title=\"asteroid\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/asteroid\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">asteroid<\/a>&#8216;s spectrum \u2013 the distinct pattern generated by the way Kamo\u02bboalewa reflects light from the Sun.\u00a0<em>[<a href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/11\/14\/word-of-the-day-744\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>ScienceAlert<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Maybe the coolest part, though, is the name:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It was named\u00a0<a title=\"Meanings of minor planet names: 469001\u2013470000\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Meanings_of_minor_planet_names:_469001%E2%80%93470000#219\">Kamo\u02bboalewa<\/a>, a Hawaiian word that refers to an oscillating\u00a0<a class=\"mw-redirect\" title=\"Celestial object\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Celestial_object\">celestial object<\/a>.<em> [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/469219_Kamo%CA%BBoalewa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Wikipedia<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>No pics, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In our orbit there&#8217;s not just us and the Moon, but also the Apollo asteroids, including this one: According to a new analysis, a chunk of rock that hangs out near Earth&#8217;s orbital path along the Sun seems to be made of the same material as\u00a0the Moon, suggesting that it \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/11\/17\/cool-astro-junk\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34665"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34669,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34665\/revisions\/34669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}