What is the earths second moon called?
The Earth only has one moon…THE Moon. Cruithne is sometimes called Earth’s second moon, but as Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait said in an article for Discover Magazine, “…it actually orbits the Sun, so it’s not a moon of ours. Same goes for the other three objects discovered, too.” Yup, there are apparently 4 large objects besides the Moon that stick pretty close to Earth, Cruithne being the largest, but none of them are moons.
3753 Cruithne (pronounced /ˈkrɪnjə/, from Old Irish IPA: [ˈkrɪθnɛ]; Modern Irish IPA: [ˈkrɪhnʲə] or [ˈkrɪnʲə]) is an asteroid in orbit around the Sun in 1:1 orbital resonance with that of the Earth. Due to its unusual orbit relative to that of the Earth, it is a periodic inclusion planetoid. It is sometimes called “Earth’s second moon”, although it orbits the Sun, not the Earth. Cruithne was discovered on October 10, 1986, by Duncan Waldron on a photographic plate taken with the UK Schmidt Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, Coonabarabran, Australia. The 1983 apparition (1983 UH) is credited to Giovanni de Sanctis and Richard M. West of the European Southern Observatory in Chile. It was not until 1997 that its unusual orbit was determined by Paul Wiegert and Kimmo Innanen, working at York University in Toronto, and Seppo Mikkola, working at the University of Turku in Finland. The asteroid is named after the Cruithne people (also known as the Priteni or the Picts) who inhabited Scot
