"Cruithne shares Earth's orbit, but does not actually orbit the Earth. Instead, it follows a spiralling path that moves along the Earth's orbit in a horseshoe shape, the two ends of the horseshoe approaching either side of Earth but not quite reaching it. It takes Cruithne 385 years to complete one such horseshoe orbit."
- Not to sound stupid but I am not following this dicussion of Cruithne's orbit. Huh? :-) (I think we need to specify: horseshoe-shaped as observed from where?)
- Take a look at the diagrams and animation of Cruithne's orbit in the external link provided at the bottom of the page. If you can come up with a simple textual description of that, you are most welcome to replace the one above. :) -BD (Actually, since the images on the page are © Paul Wiegert, I'll email him and see if I can get permission to use them in Wikipedia. I don't think that a simple textual description is possible, period. :)
Good God! If I'm understanding that right, it IS horseshoe-shaped!!
- Well, only from the perspective of the Earth. From the perspective of an observer who isn't viewing the situation from a point orbiting the sun at Earth's orbital radius, Cruithne is actually following a relatively conventional elliptical orbit around the sun. But since that elliptical orbit has almost exactly the same period as Earth's, it behaves as if it's orbiting around the Earth in this weird manner. I've just emailed Dr. Weigert for permission to use some of his diagrams here, when I get a response I'll see about trying to explain this more clearly. It's cool. :) -BD
"a relatively conventional elliptical orbit", Okay, thanks, that restores my faith in God and Newton. :-)
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