Small Asteroid Is Earth's Constant Companion

No, you can't technically call "dibs" on it. It's not enough that all governments on earth have taken up all the land on the planet, they claim all of space as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty

It's been ratified by most of the governments on our planet.

The key part from the wiki page:

"[...]the Treaty states that "outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means"

skilled• 10 years ago

Your comment made me laugh, thank you.

BurningFrog• 10 years ago

Nuke it in orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

tmptmp• 10 years ago

Or worse, like Andromeda Strain [1], full of dangerous viruses. Maybe we could sample it for viruses but can we test its full volume for viruses before bringing it on earth? But, it may lie dormant there and pass tests there, and once in Earth's climate, springs to life. In either way, gold or viruses, very thrilling.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain

broahmed• 10 years ago

Planetary Resources [1] (that asteroid mining company) might be interested in this bit of news. Hope it's minable!

[1] http://planetaryresources.com/

abcd_f• 10 years ago

Unless it's made from stacks of crisp USD bills, I doubt they will be interested. Because that's what they seem to have been focused on mining to date.

developer2• 10 years ago

I find that so disappointing. Of course there are people already planning to rip resources out of the cosmos. Once you've left Earth barren, of course it makes sense to spread our destructive tendencies throughout the solar system / galaxy.

iammyIP• 10 years ago

If we can stop mining resources on earth and outsource that to some asteroids, why not? We still need resources.

ZoF• 10 years ago

That's a pretty negative way of looking at it.

I don't disagree that humanity is 'wasteful', but these 'destructive' tendencies will be necessary for the creation and propagation of _life_ beyond/within our solar system.

What do you value more, preservation of the cosmos in their current state, or the expansion of our existence beyond Earth.

I think the fact that companies are already looking to mine asteroids is nothing short of awesome and inspiring.

zo13• 10 years ago

Unless you plan on us living a life of bare subsistence, and artificially-limiting our population growth, there is no way around it. There is no equivalent to "being one with mother-nature" when you get to this stage. At this point, resources are just there to fuel our existence, and using up barren raw-resource pockets outside of our current "home" seems like a very good way of doing it.

ChuckMcM• 10 years ago

Fun! So now to find the writeup for the KSP parameters for an intercept. It would be fascinating if it were an alien artifact, designed in such a way that you would have to reach a certain level of technology to actually see it, and then a bit further to go out and visit it. Leave a box on it with pictures for how to call the aliens to have a talk with them.

If nothing else it would be a fun story to write.

skykooler• 10 years ago

So, now we have a sort of Minmus?

colordrops• 10 years ago

it would be a fun story to write

You mean 2001?

avar2• 10 years ago

How does this affect Earth's status as a planet? The asteroid seems to be sharing our orbit, and the IAU has decided that if you haven't cleared your orbit you're not a planet. That's how Pluto got disqualified.

Are we a dwarf planet now?

DCKing• 10 years ago

'Clearing your orbit' is not a qualitative term. It is actually something that is quantifiable: a value that expresses the relation of the mass in the planet's orbit compared to the mass of the planet itself.

A tiny asteroid won't change that value much for Earth, which is more than comfortably a planet under this definition. The mass of this asteroid may not even affect the estimates of the mass of the regular space debris in our orbit even (haven't checked).

avar2• 10 years ago

I didn't know that the "clearing your orbit" requirement had the caveat that it had to be cleared up to a given mass ratio. Do you know what that mass ratio is?

kbutler• 10 years ago

Wikipedia includes the un-sourced qualifier "no other bodies of comparable size other than its satellites or those otherwise under its gravitational influence." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearing_the_neighbourhood

The "comparable size" is not part of the IAU definition, which just includes "(c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit." http://www.iau.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau0603/

aclissold• 10 years ago

This is so romantic! Earth has a little friend that (at least on a human timescale) has always been there, always will be, no questions asked <3

mhurron• 10 years ago

You mean like the moon?

clort• 10 years ago

its only been there a hundred years, according to the article

teslaberry• 10 years ago

One word, cruithne

heroprotagonist• 10 years ago

If I were aliens attempting to subtley measure the progress of life on Earth, that's where I'd put my monitoring station.

Small Asteroid Is Earth's Constant Companion

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