Object in Earth's Orbital Path?

[Chip]

Hi folks!

I have a question. I haven't been able to find much about this, and am not sure where to place it, so it's here in "Against the Mainstream" for now.

I heard from a friend of a friend that there is another object, perhaps a captured asteroid, in the same orbit as earth. However, it never catches up to us, instead it follows an odd "U" shaped orbit and backtracks on itself. The "U" shape is actually more complex than that. The object's orbit around the sun could be outlined as a series of rotating backtracking "U" shapes, so it's in a different position relative to earth from time to time throughout the year.

Eventually it will be flung out of earth's orbit.

I don't know much more than that. Anybody know? Is this real, a theory of what might be there, or just bunk? If it's real can we see it? It doesn't hurt to ask. /phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif

Chip

[Tom]

Chip, you posted it before!

http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=888&forum=1&5

(oops?)

[SpacedOut]

I thought I'd heard about it...../phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif

[Chip]

Doh!

Thanks Tom.
It's a wonder I remembered to pay my taxes.

Knock knock...(Hey, who are those guys at the front door?)

I guess there's so much junk in my head, I forgot about it. Or so little, it fell out! HA HA!

Still, it's an interesting object. /phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

Chip

[Donnie B.]

It reminds me of a little "throw-away" scene from one of the early episodes of ST-TNG, in which Picard is in his quarters studying a 3-D animation of an "anomalous orbit"... the object actually moves in more than one plane. Number One comes in, and comments, "But that's impossible". Picard responds, "Exactly!", thus illustrating his scientific curiosity and love of exploration.

[Chip]

On 2002-05-17 14:56, Donnie B. wrote:
"...Number One comes in, and comments, "But that's impossible". Picard responds, "Exactly!", thus illustrating his scientific curiosity and love of exploration."


I remember that scene. Picard also makes a reference to the yet-to-be-solved Fermat's Last Theorem (http://cgd.best.vwh.net/home/flt/flt01.htm). Which, I believe was not solved at the time that episode was filmed.

Maybe in the future they found an error in Wiles' proof! /phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif

[Donnie B.]

Or perhaps it has been dismissed on the basis that it couldn't have been the one Fermat had in mind, since he claimed that his proof was marvelous and relatively short -- just too long to fit in the margin! After all, Fermat couldn't possibly have envisioned the kind of proof Wiles came up with.

In short, maybe what's still considered unknown is not the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, but Fermat's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.