The newly discovered #asteroid 2023 FW13 (a=1.00 au; see MPEC G10) seems to be a quasi-satellite of the Earth. A preliminary simulation with @tony873004's orbit simulator shows it in this configuration for several centuries at least.
@ottaross Asteroids can come in that size too. The smaller the more common they are. The answer will come from the spectrum of light reflected from it. For J002E3 in 2002, they got suspicious when the light spectrum showed its chemistry matched white paint. But for example if this one turns out to be iron/nickel then it would be genuine. They'll have to collect the data and see what they find.
@coreyspowell it’s orbit goes half way to Venus orbit and halfway to Mars orbit. Which apparently have little pull on it?
Today I learned the term Hill Sphere, although I think I’ve been staring at gravitational contour maps of them everytime I look up Lagrange point positions.
@coreyspowell It has an apparent orbital period of just a little over a month, but the semi-major axis looks a lot longer than the moon. Is it too far from the earth (and thus the sun playing too large a role) to accurately be described by Kepler’s 3rd Law?
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