russian meteor
On Feb 20, 3:01*pm, palsing wrote:
On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 3:11:38 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On Feb 19, 10:39*am, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Tue, 19 Feb 2013 03:09:28 -0800 (PST), wrote:
A satellite of a closely approaching asteroid could be moving in any
direction relative to the Earth. *However, 2012 DA14 was several
hundred thousand kilometers away from the meteoroid, orders of
magnitude more than the typical distance of an asteroid moon.
Asteroid 2012 DA14 was very small, with a very low escape velocity.
A fragment of DA14 could be very far away from it (the existence of a
fragment is much more likely than of a satellite). But it would still
be in the same orbit as DA14, and therefore couldn't have produced the
Russian fireball.
The OP wasn't asking about a fragment with a similar/identical orbit,
but about a satellite which might have been in orbit around the
asteroid.
Same answer, whether is was a fragment or a satellite. It would still be in a similar orbit wrt the Sun & Earth, much as the moon has an orbit around the Sun that is similar to Earth's.
Relative to a third body passing through the Earth-Moon system, the
Earth and Moon could appear to have different orbits as well.
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