(urth) grumble at wolfe comment made attached to guardianarticle

[Gerry Quinn]

From: "Jeff Wilson" <jwilson at io.com>
> On 2/9/2011 6:26 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:

>> I think horseshoes are a bit problematic. If you look at Cruithne's
>> orbit, its actual distance from Earth varies on a short scale with a
>> period of one year. Over a longer term, the average distance varies.
>> Since Cruithne's orbital period is one year, there's no room for
>> meaningful six-year conjunctions.
>
> That's because tiny Cruithne is too small to influence Earth in a 
> detectable way. Janus and Epimethius, however, are similar in mass and do 
> their thing in four years.

But their orbital period around Saturn is only 0.7 days... so those four 
years are equivalent to about 2000 years on Blue!

- Gerry Quinn