6Q0B44E Monday, June 22, 2009

6Q0B44E, sometimes abbreviated to B44E, is a small object, probably an item of space debris, currently orbiting the Earth outside the orbit of the Moon.

6Q0B44E was first observed by Catalina Sky Survey researchers at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona on 28 August 2006. The sighting was confirmed the next day by observations at the Siding Spring Survey and Table Mountain Observatory.^[1]

The object is just a few metres across and has been provisionally classified as artificial. B44E orbits the earth between 585,000 and 983,000 km, which is 2 to 3 times the distance of the Moon's orbit, over a period of 80 days.^[2]

B44E was spotted at what is believed to be the brightest part of its orbit, at the 19th magnitude. As the object moves away from the Earth, its brightness will fall on a six-month cycle down to the 28th magnitude, severely limiting study of its composition.^[3]

Ephemerides calculated from the observations suggest that B44E probably entered the Earth-Moon system between 2001 and 2003, although it may have arrived up to a decade earlier. Similarities between the discoveries of B44E and J002E3, now believed to be part of the Apollo 12 rocket, have led some astronomers to speculate that B44E may be another relic of human space exploration which has returned to Earth orbit.