Earth's second Moon!

Earth has a second moon and you would know that when you get to the bottom of the post. And now that I have your attention, our first Moon, needs quite a bit of mention.

“The night walked down the sky with the moon in her hand.” said Frederic Lawrence Knowles. What would the world be without the moon? Where would the hopeless romantics, the werewolf stories, the convinced astrologers, the questing astronomers and the sci-fi enthusiasts go?Into a vacuum of space that would be created if the moon seizes to exist?

The Moon inspires us all in different ways. Optimists have quoted some memorable lines like “My barn having burned to the ground, I can now see the moon” and “Don't tell me the sky is the limit; there are footprints on the moon!” “The moon's an arrant thief and her pale fire she snatches from the Sun.” writes Shakespeare.

Through time the Moon has stood by Earth, Wolves have howled at the moon for centuries, yet it is still there. An inspiration that stands for eons together, a doorway to fantasy that opens up time and again. Some even think the Moon was put there by an alien race to monitor us. They have some good reasons to come to this seemingly weird conclusion. After all, we are always viewing only 55% of the moon. The orbit of the Moon is such that one rotation is just about as long as one revolution in its orbit around the Earth. Because of this, one side is facing us during its orbit. Always a side, only one side. In theory, the far side of the moon, often referred to as the “dark side” of the moon could easily contain an alien base, as this is the side of the moon that we never ever see, even radio signals are blocked in that area. The “far side” is always hidden, feeding the mystery the fuel it needs to burn! Isaac Asimov once commented that: “There is no astronomical reason why the moon and the sun should fit so well. It is the sheerest of coincidences, and only the Earth among all the planets is blessed in this fashion.” This "coincidence" means that the moon is just the right size and distance, to completely block the sun during an eclipse. Eclipses are infrequent events but are often linked to quite serious earthquakes. Was the moon placed in a very specific orbit by a higher intelligence from another world who wanted to either monitor us as a species or exert an element of control over our planet?

The words 'lunacy", "lunatic", and "loony" are derived from Luna because of the folk belief in the moon as a cause of periodic insanity. “I don't know if there are men on the moon, but if there are they must be using the earth as their lunatic asylum” concludes George Bernard Shaw. The Ancient Chinese say, “When a finger points to the moon, the imbecile looks at the finger”. No wonder, the “Looney Toons” are a big hit everywhere, we are under the power of the great Moon God. It is a feature of modern belief that shapeshifters such as werewolves drew their power from the moon and would change into their bestial form during the full moon.

There are dozens of anomalous facts concerning the moon that science is at a loss to explain, not least of which is how it is that according to the analysis of moon rocks, the moon, is at least a billion years older than the Earth itself. This fact alone seems to defy logic, and is something that modern cosmology is unable to explain, if the moon isn’t a fragment of the Earth, what is it, and how did it get here?

An interesting fact to end this discussion by……3753 Cruithne is an asteroid in orbit around the Sun. Due to its unusual orbit relative to that of the Earth, it is a periodic inclusion planetoid. It is sometimes called "Earth's second moon" although it is not a satellite of the Earth.