Newsgroup: it.discussioni.ufo
Titolo: nuova luna intorno alla Terra?

Da 'Sky & Telescope':
http://skyandtelescope.com/news/current/article_737_1.asp
On September 3rd in Benson, Arizona, Bill Yeung discovered a 16th-magnitude
object on CCD images taken with a 0.45-meter telescope. It was moving
rapidly northeastward across Pisces. He e-mailed the positions to the Minor
Planet Center (MPC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which quickly posted the
object on its Near-Earth Object Confirmation Page under the temporary
designation J002E3.
But within a few days of the report, the MPC removed the object from its
Confirmation Page; preliminary orbit calculations suggested it was traveling
in a large, 50-day orbit around the Earth, not the Sun. It had all the
earmarks of being a spent rocket casing or other piece of "space junk"
instead of a true minor planet.
But what exactly is it? Efforts by Tony Beresford in Australia and other
satellite experts have failed to match this object with any known artificial
satellite. Photometric measurements by Peter Kusnirak in the Czech Republic
failed to show much variation in brightness, as would be expected of a small
metallic object, especially if cylindrical. But the big question is, if it
is really in Earth orbit, why has it not been detected before? In Yeung's
words, 16th magnitude should have made it "a piece of cake" for survey
telescopes or for CCD-equipped amateur instruments to locate long ago.
Still, Brian G. Marsden (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Minor
Planet Center) remains skeptical that the mystery object is a rocky
asteroid. "There is a very remote chance it's natural," he believes. "Just
because it hasn't been identified doesn't mean it's not artificial."
"I will be awfully surprised if this is a natural thing captured by Earth,"
says Marsden.
According to Marsden, the object's geocentric orbit was his first indication
that the body was most likely space junk. But to be certain, he suggests
that astrometric stations continue monitoring its motion and that radio
telescopes observe the mysterious body. A detailed ephemeris is available
from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's HORIZONS System.
"Radar ought to be able to tell us pretty quickly if we are seeing a
polished metallic surface or a natural surface," says Marsden. "Radar would
settle it once and for all."
Meanwhile, using the observations available so far, JPL's Paul Chodas
concludes that J002E3 is possibly a leftover Saturn-IVB stage from one of
the Apollo missions of the late 1960s. His report includes an animation of
the object's recapture by Earth in April 2002 after being in a heliocentric
orbit for several decades. This recapture, incidentally, explains why it
eluded detection until now.

 
http://skyandtelescope.com/news/current/article_737_1.asp
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Ecco, Mr. Wallace... Se , adesso, volesse essere cosě paziente e gentile da
tradurre il tutto nel linguaggio dei nativi di questa curiosa penisola
chiamata Italia, anche quel povero autoctono ignorante che Le scrive sarebbe
gratificato dell'onore di leggerLa...
Antonio Bruno
http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/Ass_Graal
http://communities.msn.it/LaricercadelGraal
http://www.edicolaweb.net/edicola.htm
http://www.trolls.too.it
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"Voi terrestri siete una strana razza nell'universo: date il meglio di voi
nei momenti peggiori..."  (dal film: "Starman", di John Carpenter)

gratificato dell'onore di leggerLa...
 č lo stesso articolo che ho tradotto  nel post  - luna nuova BBC -