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J002E3 - an
Apollo 12 leftover Saturn IV-B stage
The image below is a
composition of 15 individual CCD frames (each 60 sec
exposed), acquired at CBA Belgium Observatory on the
night of September 12/13, 2002 (around 02h49m UT)
with a 0.35-m f/6.3 SCT and ST-7 CCD in unfiltered
light.
The fast moving object is J002E3, which shortly
after its discovery on Sep 03, 2002, was found to be
traveling in a 50-day orbit around the Earth.
Initially, there were some speculations about the
possibility of the object being an asteroid,
captured in an Earth orbit, but it now seems secure
that J002E3 is a leftover Saturn-IVB stage from the
Apollo 12 mission of November 1969.
![](images/J002E3b.gif)
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Copyright ©
2002 - Tonny Vanmunster.
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