In 2003, a piece of the Apollo program came back for a visit! (dial-up warning)

[krispos42]

J002E3 is the designation given to a supposed asteroid discovered by amateur astronomer Bill Yeung on September 3, 2002. Further examination revealed the object was not a rock asteroid but instead the S-IVB third stage of the Apollo 12 Saturn V rocket (serial S-IVB-507).<1>

When it was first discovered it was quickly found that the object was in an orbit around Earth. Astronomers were surprised at this as the Moon is the only large object in orbit around the Earth and anything else would have been ejected long ago due to perturbations with the Earth, the Moon and the Sun.

Therefore it must have entered into Earth orbit very recently, yet there was no recently-launched spacecraft that matched the orbit of J002E3. One explanation could have been that it was a 30-meter wide piece of rock, but University of Arizona astronomers found that the object's electromagnetic spectrum was consistent with white titanium dioxide paint, the same paint used by NASA for the Saturn V rockets. Back-tracing its orbit showed that the object had been orbiting the Sun for 31 years and had last been in the vicinity of the Earth in 1971. This seemed to suggest that it was a part of the Apollo 14 mission but NASA knew the whereabouts of all hardware used for this mission; the third stage, for instance, was deliberately crashed into the Moon for seismic studies.

The only other explanation was that it was the S-IVB third stage for Apollo 12. NASA had originally planned to direct the S-IVB into a solar orbit, but an extra long burn of the ullage motors meant that venting the remaining propellant in the tank of the S-IVB did not give the rocket stage enough energy to escape the Earth-Moon system, and instead the stage ended up in a semi-stable orbit around the Earth after passing by the Moon on November 18, 1969. The Apollo 12 S-IVB eventually vanished.

<a bit more>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J002E3

:hi:

[arcane1]

1. Ok, that's pretty cool there!

:D

[krispos42]

6. It funny what you find looking up cosmetic ingredients

And yes, that's "cosmetics", not "cosmic". :D

[RC]

2. Cool.

So that's how that works.

[FSogol]

3. Cool, thanks for posting. n/t

[progressoid]

4. So, what's "L1"

[krispos42]

5. LaGrange point 1

The point where the gravity of the Earth-Moon system exactly matches the gravity of the Sun.

NASA has a few satellites there, IIRC.


There are 5 in total that relate to the Earth-Moon-Sun system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point

:hi:

[progressoid]

7. Ah.

Merci beaucoup, danke schoen, etc.

[ThoughtCriminal]

8. Where's Snoopy?

http://thoughtcrimewave.blogspot.com/2009/11/wheres-snoopy.html

"Snoopy" then lunar module from the Apollo 10 mission has not been seen for over 40 years. A dress rehearsal for a Moon landing brought astronauts Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan within 8.4 nautical miles (15.6 km) from the lunar surface. After returning it's crew back to "Charlie Brown", the Apollo 10 Command Module, the ascent stage of "Snoopy" was launched into heliocentric orbit making it the sole intact lunar module ascent stage remaining out of the Lunar Modules sent into space. The Apollo 5, 9 and 13 LM ascent stages burned up in Earth's atmosphere, the Apollo 11,12,14,15, 16 and 16 LM ascent stages crashed onto the Moon.

Maybe some day, Snoopy will be found again. It's orbit around they Sun occasionally brings it back into the vicinity of the Earth-Moon system (perhaps every 11-12 years), but it will be very difficult to spot. At least one of the much larger Saturn S-IVb third stages from the Apollo Lunar missions may have paid us a visit in 2002 (Apollo 12 - J002E3).

[RT Atlanta]

10. I would be crazy and ridiculously expensive

But I always thought it would be cool to have a "salvage" space mission to find the LM and, through something like the shuttle's cargo bay, return it to Earth as an extremely rare museum piece.

[Nihil]

12. And, of course, ...

:-(

[Odin2005]

9. And the Moon kicked it away again, LOL!

[hunter]

11. Moon says: This is MY orbit!

MINE!

Get out!