When an asteroid isn't an asteroid: the false alarms of fake asteroids.

Face it, You couldn't exactly call astronauts 'clean'.

Space missions, whether manned or unmanned, most always leave debris behind, whether if its when astronomers decide to let a telescope disintegrate in the atmosphere, or if STS-32's external tank had a few pieces break off before tumbling into the ocean.

To tell the truth, we've launched over 8,000 objects into space, and currently have about 1,000,000 pieces of debris in orbit of Earth. Most of these are small, only a few millimeters across, but occasionally some of these are a good 10 feet (3 meters) Across.

So, what does all of this have to do with asteroids? Well, to put it simply, we're sometimes just plain idiots.

On September 3rd, 2002, an amateur astronomer, Bill Yeung, found an asteroid that appeared to be in orbit around Earth. Of course, astronomers were surprised by this, because the only natural satellite in orbit of Earth was the Moon! (see previous post) Of course, they were right. After analyzing the object's orbital path and spectrum, they discovered it to have been S-4B stage of Apollo 12, which was intended to orbit the sun, but a small error in the rocket procedure left the stage in orbit for over 30 years! Soon, however, the rocket left Earth orbit to come near it 40 years later.

Of course, this is nothing new: In 2006, the Catalina Sky Survey discovered an asteroid orbiting outside the Moon's orbit around Earth, and was quickly found to have the spectra of the paint found on Saturn V rockets. This asteroid/satellite has the most stable orbit of any orbiting earth: it has been in a relatively stable orbit for 11 to 13 years!

If you thought all of this was crazy, you're in for a surprise:

Astronomers searching for near-earth asteroids (NEO's) found an 'asteroid' in 2007 that would make a very, very close encounter with Earth. At first they were worried- until they found out it was the Rosetta spacecraft, mistakenly designated 2007 VN84.

While numerous of these encounters have happened, I'm not going to mention them all, and just restate the main point:

We're sometimes just plain idiots.

I hope you found this article informative.