Today, it is generally recognized that the only natural companion of our planet is the Moon. But how many suggestions were made about other satellites - both astronomers and science fiction writers!
Attempts to find "additional" satellites were made up to the development of the human space - during the XIX century and the first half of the XX-th.
Petit Satellite
Director of the Toulouse Observatory, the French astronomer Frederick Petit until the end of his days was convinced that the Earth, in addition to the Moon, there are other natural satellites. All of them, according to Petit, are cars.
The most famous were the reports of the astronomer about the car, which he observed in 1846. Petit also relied on the observations of other scientists - Lebon, Dassier, Larivier, and concluded that the car revolves around our planet in an elliptical orbit with a period of 2 hours and 45 minutes, apogee 3570 km and perigee 11.4 km. Nevertheless, the results of his research were refuted by the scientist Leverrier in 1851, and then by the scientific community as a whole.
Satellites of Valtemat
Meanwhile already in 1898 another scientist - Dr. Georg Valtemat from Hamburg reported the discovery of a whole system of small earth satellites. One of these satellites, according to the astronomer, is at a distance of just over 1 million km from our planet and has a diameter of 700 km, making a revolution around the Earth in 119 days. The satellite reflects insufficient light, and is therefore rarely seen with the naked eye.
With reference to observations made in Greenland in 1881, Valtemat even stated that "sometimes he shines in the night like the Sun, but only for an hour or so." According to the researcher's calculations, in February 1898 the satellite had to pass through the disk of the Sun. And on February 4 this year, the post office workers in Greifswald (Germany) really saw a dark object that passed through the Sun and occupied one-fifth of its diameter. And everything would be alright, but at the same time it was also watched by professionals - astronomers W. Winkler from Jena (Germany) and Ivo von Benko from Pula (Austria). They did not see anything except suns on the sun. However, all this did not stop Valtemat in search of a satellite, and in July of the same year, 1898, he sent a message to Science magazine about the discovery of a third satellite (diameter 746 km), which allegedly lies 427,250 km from our planet. The magazine commented on this message as follows: "It is possible that this satellite manages madness".
Lilith
Nevertheless, in 1918, some astrologer Walter Gornold (Sephariel) stated that he had again "discovered" the satellite of Valtemat, which he called Lilith - after the first wife of Adam in the Kabbalistic theory. Like Valtemat, the astrologer said that Lilith is a "dark" companion that cannot be seen most of the time, and can be discerned only when it passes through the disk of the Sun. According to Sefariel, the satellite has about the same mass as the Moon. The astrologer did not consider considerations that if there was a satellite with a similar mass near to our planet, this would cause significant perturbations in the movement of the Moon, which are not observed.
Conspiracy theory
Of course, there were others - even more unsubstantiated - reports of supposedly open Earth satellites. With their search, even linked to one of the conspiracy theories, which was born in the restless head of the American ufologist Donald Kiho (who later became director of the National Research Committee on Air Phenomena). Referring to some sources in the Pentagon, Kiho claims that in 1953-1954 two Earth satellites were allegedly found on Earth's orbit, although artificial, in truth. Later the media wrote that the satellites, in fact, are of a natural nature. However, in 1959, American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto, presented the final conclusion that the search for any satellites in the Earth's orbit did not yield any results: no objects brighter than the 12-14th magnitude were detected.
Rings of the Earth
In 1980, NASA scientist John O'Keefe suggested that 34 million years ago the Earth could have rings similar to those that can now be seen in Saturn. The rings could have formed in the Late Eocene, when a decrease in winter temperatures was observed. Then a large number of tektites (a piece of melted dark green, sometimes black glass, having a meteorite, comet and asteroid origin - NS) fell out. Tectites could be captured by the gravitational field of the Earth and, thus, form a ring that has been stable for several million years.
Whether there really was such a ring is hard to say. But scientists do not rule out the possibility of having rings even today. However, if they are, they consist of small dust particles, which cannot be seen in the optical range.
Trojan Asteroids of the Earth
These are not satellites of our planet. This is the name of the hypothetical group of asteroids near Langrange points L4 and L5 of the Earth system? The Sun and thus moving around the Sun along the Earth's orbit at 60 ° ahead (L4) or behind (L5) it. When viewed from Earth, they would be located in the sky at 60 ° behind or in front of the Sun.
In 2010, our planet actually discovered the first Trojan asteroid called 2010 TK7. It is a small object with a diameter of about 300 m. At the L5 point, the Trojan asteroids have not yet been detected.
The illustrations are used in agreement with the Depositphotos photobank
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