Last summer I read an article focused on what it called Earth’s second moon. As I read further resources, I learned it really is not a moon, but takes a weird path while orbiting both the Sun and the Earth.
Asteroid 3753 Cruithne is only about 3 miles at its longest and is very hard to see. Its name is a reference to the Picts, an ancient name for a group of Celtic Britons who were sometimes thought of as a lost people. As it orbits in about the same yearly path, it intersects Earth’s orbit twice, once in the spring and once in November. Each time she appears to turn away on a kidney shaped path around us, even though her orbit is an oval around the sun. This link shows the relative orbits.
Now that we are moving toward winter, the wanderer approaches again. Maybe you will see her, that speck in the sky, before she dashes away in her never-ending tumble.
The Wanderer
Cruithne is lost,
somewhere on the other side,
wandering with Mercury and Mars.
She wobbles and sways,
tumbles and plays,
while our summer burns
and we slowly catch up.
Come November,
she will see us coming and turn,
running off again
across the darkened skies,
false gods calling her near,
while the grasses in the upper moors
bend to cooling winds,
And a faithful moon
makes the midnight bright
upon those keeping their eyes
toward the heavens,
searching in earnest
for others who may have strayed.
| Copyright © 2021 by Maik Strosahl Michael E. Strosahl has focused on poetry for over twenty years, during which time he served a term as President of the Poetry Society of Indiana. He relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2018 and currently co-hosts a writers group there. |
What a delightful, but surprisingly rhythmically rhyming couplet:
ReplyDeleteShe wobbles and sways,
tumbles and plays
Had to get a little playful myself with Cruithne. The rhyme accomplished that for me.
ReplyDeleteI tried copying just the orbit’s link and it keeps pulling the article, so for those interested, please scroll down the article until you can see the animated path Cruithne, Earth take around the sun and the kidney bean shaped path they take around each other.
Let me try to help. The path image I think you mean is shown in the “tumblr” space immediately following the sentence, “The asteroid traces a horseshoe shaped path through space, shown in the GIF below where Earth is in blue, Cruithne's path around the sun is in red and how this path looks from Earth is in white:”
DeleteThe space wasn’t filled immediately when I looked, but when it did appear, I captured it via screenshot, which I make available via this link.
That works. Thank you, sir!
ReplyDeleteIt still amazes me that, though Cruithne has passed through in my lifetime over a hundred times, this is the first time I have heard of it.
Very interesting name too. Very ancient. In his Conan novels, Robert E. Howard had the Picts as small, dark and degenerate. They were in fact tall, well-built and were as white as a white man can be, although many were covered in tats from the woad plant, that gives a deep blue die. Hence the Latin name "pictii", "guys with paintings on". They often fought wearing nothing but the tats. If the gods are on your side you'll win; if not armor can't help you. Thanks for this; I knew nothing of Cruithne the "asteroid?" and it has been decades since I saw the word in print!
ReplyDeleteRoger, your scholarship is awesome! Thanks for sharing it with us.
DeleteGlad you enjoyed it. And thank you for another rabbit hole for my brain to explore for inspiration.
ReplyDelete