Natural satellites of the Earth. How many natural satellites does the Earth have?

Natural satellites of the Earth (just so - in the plural) occupied scientists for several centuries. Astronomers of the XIX and the first half of the XX century tried to find the companions of the Moon. However, over and over again their assumptions and even convincing evidence proved to be erroneous. Today everyone from the school bench knows that the only natural satellite of the Earth is the cosmic body of the Moon. Many other candidates are also of interest to astronomers, since they are not fictitious, but actually existing objects that were mistakenly assigned the status of a permanent satellite of our planet.

Bolid

Many people who are fond of studying celestial bodies are well known French astronomer Frederick Petit. He was director of the Toulouse Observatory in the middle of the XIX century. Today Petty is known primarily as a supporter of the theory that the Moon is not the only natural satellite of the Earth, but one of several. According to the astronomer, the role of her companions were approached by fireballs (large and fairly bright meteors). Candidates for satellites circled the planet in an elliptical orbit. The most famous is the car, which Petit observed in 1846. Summarizing the data - his and other scientists - about the object, the astronomer concluded that the body rotates with a period of 2 hours and 45 minutes, with a perigee at a distance of 11.4 km and an apogee of 3570 km.

Despite the fact that the measurements and calculations of Frederick Petit were confirmed by some astronomers, his assumption was soon disproved. In 1851, Urbain Leverrier cited evidence of the fallacy of the theory of the Toulouse scholar.

New assumptions

Petit was not the only astronomer who tried to refute the accepted opinion about how many natural satellites the Earth has. His companion in this case was a scientist from Hamburg, Dr. Georg Valtemat. In 1898, he announced the opening of a system of small satellites. One of them, according to the calculations of the scientist, was located at a distance of just over a million kilometers from the Earth and made one revolution in 119 days. The diameter of the hypothetical satellite was 700 km.

Waltemat expected that the second Moon would pass through the solar disk in February 1898, and this would prove the rightness of the researcher. The satellite was really noticed by amateur astronomers in Germany. However, none of the professionals who observed the Sun that day noticed anything of the kind.

Another attempt

Valtemat did not abandon his search. In July of the same year, he wrote an article about another candidate for the role of the lunar companion. The cosmic body with a diameter of 746 km turned, according to the calculations of the author of the theory, at a distance slightly exceeding 400 thousand kilometers from our planet. However, these data also did not receive confirmation. Hypothetical natural satellites of the Land of Valtemata could not get the status of real objects.

Mystic

The peculiarity of the satellite, "discovered" by Valtemat, was the impossibility of observing it in any other moments, except the time of passage through the disk of the Sun. The object almost did not reflect the light, and therefore was not noticeable. In 1918, astrologer Walter Gornold announced the re-opening of the satellite Valtemata. He confirmed his "dark" nature and called Lilith (so, according to Kabbalah, the first wife of Adam was called). The astrologer insisted that the second moon was comparable in mass to the first.

In the scientific world, these statements caused only a smile. Such a massive body would not remain unnoticed, since its presence would have a significant impact on the Moon, which would affect its movement.

Policy

The natural satellite of the Earth (the Moon) or Mars and Venus, its nearest neighbors, always connected with some mysteries in the minds of people. In the past century, these space objects were often thought of as inhabited by alien civilizations or military bases of unfriendly states. Against the background of such assumptions, the hypotheses of artificial satellites launched into orbit in an atmosphere of strict secrecy seemed more real.

At the beginning of the space era, in the middle of the last century, there were rumors of two similar objects. After a while in the media began to appear reports of their natural origin. The excitement around the new satellites subsided in 1959, when the astronomer Clyde Tombaugh (a scientist who discovered Pluto) after a long study of the space around the Earth announced the absence of any objects brighter than the 12-14 magnitude magnitude.

Monitoring of near-Earth space

Today, few people do not know what is called the natural satellite of planet Earth. The moon today is recognized as the only and unique. However, astronomers are constantly watching the space near our planet. The purpose of such a study is not to search for new satellites, but to protect against possible collisions, to predict them, and to ensure the safety of stations. Clyde Tombaugh was one of the first to study such a study.

Today, the search for space bodies in near-Earth space is the goal of several large projects. While new natural satellites of the Earth in the process of research were not found.

Quasipoints

Of course, the Moon is not the only object near our planet. Studies in recent years have put a lot of information of this kind. There are asteroids in orbital resonance with the Earth 1: 1. In the media and popular science literature they are often referred to as "the second Moon". The main difference of such objects is the fact that they rotate not around the Earth, but around the Sun.

A good example of such a cosmic body is the asteroid (3753) of Krutini. He during the movement crosses the orbits of the Earth, Venus and Mars. The asteroid's orbit is strongly elongated, but, unfortunately, it never approaches so close to our planet to be accessible for observation through weak equipment. You can see Krutini only with a powerful telescope.

Trojans

There is another group of objects that are sometimes referred to as natural satellites of the Earth, but they are not. These are the so-called Trojans - asteroids, moving in the same orbit as our planet, but outrunning or catching up with it. To date, there has been confirmed the existence of only one such body. This is the asteroid 2010 TC7. He is 60º ahead of the Earth. 2010 TK7 is a small (300 m in diameter) and rather dim object. His discovery increased the interest of scientists in the search for Trojans in the vicinity of the Earth.

Optical effect

The question "how many natural satellites from the Earth" sometimes, although extremely rare, arises simply by looking at the night sky. Given a certain confluence of circumstances, the simultaneous presence of several factors overhead, one can observe a phenomenon called a false moon. To do this, a full (or almost complete) night star should be bright enough. Around it there is a halo. Moon rays are refracted in the ice crystals of the cirrostratus clouds and bright luminous dots form on both sides of the satellite. An inexperienced observer can for some instant believe that wherever a natural satellite of the Earth (the Moon) or Mars and other planets plow space, new real space objects have appeared. However, the illusion will quickly disperse. A false moon, or a parselen, is more like a play of light than it really is.

Double system

The moon, as the closest space object to the Earth, is always at the center of many research projects. Of course, not everyone knows about it. A lot of controversy still, for example, causes the theory of origin. However, it can safely be called one of the most studied objects of space, as well as a marker, a distinctive sign of our house in the universe. The latter fact is well illustrated by one of the variants of the flag of our planet, where a natural satellite of the Earth is depicted.

The most interesting is that in the light of relatively recent studies, the status of the Moon is not so unambiguous. According to astronomers, the two most studied objects are a double planet. The natural satellite of the Earth and our space house revolve around one center of mass. It is located not in the center of the Earth, but at a distance of almost 5 thousand kilometers from it. This hypothesis is also supported by the rather impressive dimensions of the Moon (and their ratio with the size of the Earth) compared with other satellites. An example of a similar system is Pluto and Charon, revolving around one center of mass and always rotated by the same side to each other.

So, today everyone understands what is called the natural satellite of the Earth and that he is only one. The search for his companions left a notable mark in the history of astronomy and confirmed a well-known fact: a man is always not enough of what he has. However, it is thanks to this feature that many of the discoveries of the last century took place.