Astronauts aboard Apollo 10 ejected the Snoopy lunar module and returned to Earth on May 23, 1969. That was the last time humanity saw Snoopy; today, astronomers believe they have unearthed this interesting space artifact.
Astronomer Nick Howes, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, spoke about the possible discovery at the Cheltenham Science Festival. A Sky News story claimed that Howes, who started looking for Snoopy in 2011, is 98 percent positive that the object in question is, in fact, Snoopy. However, additional observations will be required to verify (or reject) this statement firmly.
Using the Faulkes North Telescope in Hawaii, the Faulkes South Telescope in Australia, and data from the Catalina Sky Survey outside Tucson, Arizona, astronomers began their search in 2011. The break came last year when the small Earth-crossing asteroid 2018 AV2 was discovered during observations at Mt Lemmon and other survey sites. 2018 AV2, which orbits the Sun every 382 days, spends the majority of its time behind Earth in its orbit around the Sun. The low orbital inclination (less than 1°) relative to the ecliptic and the low speed (less than a kilometer per second) relative to Earth's orbital velocity drew scientists' attention.
Other reasons contributed to the conclusion that the 2018 AV2 will almost certainly be Snoopy. It's already identified as an artificial object on the Minor Planet Center's Distant Artificial Objects page of the International Astronomical Union. The object's brightness also corresponded to "a size in the proper ballpark," according to Howes. Howes also claims to have received correspondence "from a reliable astronomer at the Arizona Sky Survey confirming that JPL teams had also worked on it, and it looked like it was in the proper spot in 1969" from a "trusted astronomer at the Arizona Sky Survey."
Apollo 10: Prelude to History
Between the dramatic Apollo 8 flight around the Moon and Apollo 11's first crewed Moon landing, Apollo 10 was an important mission. Apollo 10 served as a dress rehearsal for the Moon landing after Apollo 9 successfully tested the lunar module in space for the first time in Earth orbit.
The astronauts piloted the lunar module to a distance of 14.5 kilometers (9 miles) from the moon's surface. NASA gave the module the name "Snoopy" after the Peanuts comic strip character, while the space agency gave the command module the name Charlie Brown.
Among the Apollo missions, Snoopy's path was unique. The Snoopy lunar module was eventually launched into an orbit around the Sun, unlike the other five missions that landed on the Moon.
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False Alarms
Several false finds have been made in the search for Snoopy over the years. Sky & Telescope said WT1190F landed in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka on November 13, 2015. Astronomers believed that the small near-Earth asteroid WT1190F was the missing lunar module.
Universe Today said experts also discovered the Earth's first temporary mini-moon, 2006 RH120 in 2006. Small asteroids are occasionally trapped by the Earth-Moon system, following intricate orbits around the pair before being expelled back into solar orbit, astronomers have discovered as the ranks of near-Earth asteroids have expanded in the years afterward.
Discarded Space Age hardware, which often follows the same course, may be mistaken for these artifacts. Asteroid J002E3, for example, was discovered in 2002, but astronomers quickly noticed that its spectra matched NASA paint from the late 1960s. The item turned out to be an Apollo 12 third-stage booster. Another Universe Today report noted that asteroid 2013 QW1 was from a Chang'e 2 Moon mission upper stage booster.
Unfortunately, 2018 AV2 is only 0.374 astronomical units away from Earth (34.7 million miles), making it a dim +29.5 magnitude object. It won't get any closer to Earth until July 10, 2037, when it will pass 4 million miles away, or 16 times the distance between Earth and the Moon.
However, Howes points out that a Falcon Heavy or Delta IV rocket might travel the current distance in a year, making it theoretically possible to detect the object now. Another option is to send a small CubeSat with a future SLS launch, with the goal of flying by the object and taking measurements.
Spectral analysis, a radar profile, and other observations would all help confirm or disprove the object's identity. After all, hollow metallic artificial objects react to solar heating and radiative pressure differently than solid space rocks (known as the Yarkovsky effect).
With the Apollo 11 moon landing anniversary, it's worth considering that a piece of the predecessor's mission that made it all possible is still out there, silently orbiting the Sun.
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