• Question: does Earth's Cruithne (the asteroid which used to be thought of as Earth's Second moon) affect us at all?

    Asked by anon-106860 to Adrian, Gaia, Jim, Scott, Vicky on 10 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Jim Barrett

      Jim Barrett answered on 10 Mar 2016:


      Cruithne, as I understand it, is more like a minor planet, since it orbits the sun. It’s really really small, so we would feel the effects of Jupiter long before Cruithne, but we certainly affect it!

    • Photo: Scott Lawrie

      Scott Lawrie answered on 10 Mar 2016:


      Cruithne is a little rock that happens to orbit the sun at the same rate as Earth does: i.e. once per year. It’s not a moon as it doesn’t orbit Earth. Every few hundred years its orbit brings it reasonably close to Earth but its gravity will only move the Earth by a couple of centimeters! Nothing to worry about 🙂

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