The Second Moons of Earth

I'm sure they can calculate exactly where it'll go once they know enough about its position and velocity.

No, all we know is that it is in a possibly-unstable orbit. If the orbit were simply enough that we could calculate it long term, then it would be stable enough to not be reejected. In fact, landing on the object in order to enjoy it's boost out of Earth orbit would require matching its orbit exactly, which would put the lander on an escape orbit itself. No chuck of iron necessary.

If you didn't notice from the summary, one item made four orbits in a year, that is one orbit every three months. By Kepler's laws, that means that the object's distance from the Earth is twice the moon's distance. You would already be at escape velocity there, seeing as it just butts up against the Earth's Hill sphere. And all that is assuming a circular orbit, which is very unlikely. More likely, apogee is outside the Hill sphere and the only reason that the object stays in "orbit" is when the apogee is opposite the sun. As soon as the orbit rotates a bit, the object is lost.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/sjIDwyiTHqk/the-second-moons-of-earth

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