FIGU BULLETIN 11 SECOND "MOON" OF EARTH, HUMAN MACHINES

In June 1997 the German Research Agency for Aeronautics and Space Travel (DLR) announced the discovery of a small moon in close proximity to the asteroid Dionysus. This announcement of the two discoverer astronomers generated a small scientific sensation because the only previous irrefutable identification of an asteroidal moon had come from NASA's (National Aeronautic and Space Agency) space probe Galileo. The astronomers, Gerhard Hahn and Stefano Mottola from the Berlin Institute for the Research of Planets, were successful in discovering the moon because they noticed fluctuations of light as they were studying Dionysus. The theoretical likelihood of moons or other satellites orbiting asteroids has been predicted now for quite some time.