From: Randall Randall (wolfkin@freedomspace.net)
Date: Thu Sep 12 2002 - 23:30:34 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> On Thursday, September 12, 2002 11:29 pm spike66 wrote,
>
>>Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>>
>>>It loops around the earth and the sun in a weird horseshoe orbit.
>>
>>Im a little puzzled by your discription of the orbit.
>>If it passes within 9E6 miles of Earth, the orbit
>>around the sun is extremely close to elliptical, and
>>the effect of the earth's gravity is very small. My
>>back of the envelope calc shows the gravitational
>>effect of the sun as over 3000 times larger than the
>>effect of the earth at that distance. Cruithne would
>>scarcely notice the earth out there.
>
> Your are assuming too much in your "back of the envelope" calculations. It
> goes one direction around the sun, loops around the earth and goes back in
> the opposite direction around the sun, meets the earth on the other side and
> then loops back again. It goes back and forth in a "C" shaped orbit. It
> stays on one side of the sun and never gets to the other side. This is what
> is so strange. Your elliptical orbit is totally wrong for this weird
> object.
It's worse than that. The 'C' shaped orbit is only with respect to Earth.
Both Earth and Cruithne orbit the Sun more than 300 times before a rebound,
and more than 700 times before a complete orbit. Cruithne is not in the
same plane as Earth, either.
-- Randall Randall <randall@randallsquared.com> "[The] poetic justice of cause and effect compels respect, compassion." -- Faithless, God is a DJ.
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