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Although the Moon is Earth's only natural satellite, there are a number of near-Earth objects (NEOs) with orbits that are in resonance with Earth. These have been called "second" moons of Earth or "minimoons". [2] [3] 469219 Kamoʻoalewa, an asteroid discovered on 27 April 2016, is possibly the most stable quasi-satellite of Earth. [4]
The object orbits the Sun but makes slow close approaches to the Earth–Moon system. Between 29 September (19:54 UTC) and 25 November 2024 (16:43 UTC) (a period of 1 month and 27 days) [4] it passed just outside Earth's Hill sphere (roughly 0.01 AU [1.5 million km; 0.93 million mi]) at a low relative velocity (in the range 0.002 km/s (4.5 mph) – 0.439 km/s [980 mph]) and will become ...
Tethys has two trojan moons, Telesto (leading) and Calypso (trailing), and Dione also has two, Helene (leading) and Polydeuces (trailing). [23] Helene is by far the largest trojan moon, [53] while Polydeuces is the smallest and has the most chaotic orbit. [52] These moons are coated with dusty material that has smoothed out their surfaces. [62]
In 2021, Scott S. Sheppard and colleagues used the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii and discovered two more irregular moons of Neptune, which were announced in 2024. [12] These two moons are provisionally designated S/2021 N 1 and S/2002 N 5. The latter turned out to be a recovery of the lost moon from 2002. [2] [13] Discovery of outer ...
Irregular moons are probably minor planets that have been captured from surrounding space. Most irregular moons are less than 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) in diameter. The earliest published discovery of a moon other than Earth's was by Galileo Galilei, who discovered the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter in 1610. Over the following three ...
Neptune's moon Proteus is the largest irregularly shaped natural satellite; the shapes of Eris' moon Dysnomia and Orcus' moon Vanth are unknown. All other known natural satellites that are at least the size of Uranus's Miranda have lapsed into rounded ellipsoids under hydrostatic equilibrium , i.e. are "round/rounded satellites" and are ...
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They use N-body simulations to show that the single ancestral moon scenario should result in an impact between the two moons, leading to a debris ring in 10 4 years. Another suggestion is that Mars was hit by an object from beyond the orbit of Saturn or Neptune, about 3% the mass of the planet and consisting of at least 30% and up to 70% water ice.