see also [AAS Nova Facebook] [AAS Facebook]

A ground-breaking paper by Western researchers David Clark, Paul Wiegert, and Peter Brown, along with their Czech colleagues, shows with great certainty that a fireball observed in 2014 by Czech automated monitoring stations was the result of a grazing entry of a Temporarily Captured Orbiter, or Minimoon.

The paper, published in the Astronomical Journal,  was highlighted by American Astronomical Society (AAS) Nova web site. This site showcases recent research results of great interest.

The results of the Clark et al. research indicates that the 2014 Czech fireball was the second ever known observation of a Minimoon, and the first observation of one hitting the Earth.   Canadian astronomer Clarence Chant in 1913 was the first to theorize  that such a class of solar system bodies could potentially exist.

Minimoons are extremely difficult to observe, but recent models indicate that our Earth-Moon system may be temporarily capturing hundreds of such objects each year.

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