The Earth currently has only one natural satellite, the Moon. But relatively recently - some 6-7 thousand years ago - two moons could be seen above our planet. This is evidenced not only by the myths and traditions of many peoples, but also by geological finds. Blocks of pure iron In the north of Argentina is the area of Campo del Cielo (in translation - "heavenly field"). This name is taken from an ancient Indian legend, which tells about the fall from the sky at this place of mysterious metal blocks. Pieces of iron, according to old Spanish chronicles, were found here as early as the 16th century. The conquistadors used them to make swords and spears. Particularly lucky was a certain Herman de Miraval, who in 1576, in a rather remote area, among marshy lowlands, stumbled upon a huge block of pure iron. The enterprising Spaniard visited her several times and beat off pieces from her for various needs. In 1783, the prefect of one of the provinces, Don Rubin de Celis, organized an expedition to this block and, having discovered it after a long search, estimated its mass at about 15 tons. Detailed Description the object has not been preserved, and since then no one has seen it, although attempts to find the block have been made more than once. In 1803, a meteorite weighing about a ton was discovered in the vicinity of Campo del Cielo. Its largest fragment (635 kg) was delivered to Buenos Aires in 1813. It was later acquired by the Englishman Sir Woodbine Darish and donated to the British Museum. This block of space iron is still resting on a pedestal in front of the entrance to the museum. Part of its surface is specially polished to show the structure of the metal with the so-called "Widmanstetten figures", which speak of the extraterrestrial origin of the object.
In Campo del Cielo and its environs, iron fragments are still found weighing from a few kilograms of grams to many tons. The largest weighed 33.4 tons. It was found in 1980 near the town of Gancedo American meteorite researcher Robert Hug tried to buy it and take it to the United States, but the Argentine authorities opposed this. To date, this meteorite is considered the second largest among all those discovered on Earth - after the so-called Hoba meteorite, weighing about 60 tons. Unusual a large number of meteorites found in a relatively small area, suggests that once a "meteor shower" was shed in this place. Evidence of this, in addition to the finds of the iron objects themselves, is a large number of craters in the Campo del Cielo area. The largest of them is the Laguna Negra crater with a diameter of 115 meters and a depth of more than 5 meters.
Huge meteorite exploded in the atmosphere
In 1961, the professor of Columbia University (USA), the world's largest specialist in meteorite W. Cassidy, became interested in the finds in Campo del Cielo. The expedition organized by him discovered a large number of small metal meteorites - hexaderites, consisting of almost chemically pure iron (96% of it, the rest is nickel, cobalt and phosphorus). The study of other meteorites found at different times in this area gives the same composition. According to the scientist, this proves that they are all fragments of a single celestial body. Cassidy also drew attention to a strange fact: usually, when a large meteorite explodes in the atmosphere, its fragments fall to the Earth, scattering in an ellipse with a maximum diameter of about 1600 meters. And on Campo del Cielo, the length of this diameter is 17 kilometers!
The published preliminary findings of Cassidy's research have generated worldwide interest. Hundreds of volunteers joined the scientist, and as a result, new fragments of meteoric iron were discovered even at a considerable distance from Campo del Cielo, up to the coast Pacific Ocean.
Satellite "two"
But it turned out that the territory of the finds is even more extensive. An unexpected light on the history of the Campo del Cielo meteorite was shed by a discovery from Australia. Here back in 1937, 300 kilometers from the town of Hanbury. in an ancient crater with a diameter of 175 meters and a depth of about 8 meters, an iron meteorite weighing 82 kilograms and several fragments of a smaller weight were found. In 1969, they conducted a study of their composition and found that all these fragments are almost identical. iron meteorites from Campo del Cielo.
Craters in the Hanbury area have been known since the 1920s. There are several dozen of them, the largest of them reaches 200 meters, but most are relatively small - from 9 to 18 meters. During the excavations carried out here since the 1930s, over 800 fragments of meteoric iron were found in the craters, including four parts of one piece with a total weight of about 200 kilograms.
The final conclusion that Cassidy came to was this: a huge meteorite fell to Earth, but not suddenly. For some time before its fall, this celestial body revolved around the Earth in elliptical orbit, gradually approaching the planet. Being in orbit could last quite a long time - a thousand years or more. However, under the force gravity this second Moon eventually approached the Earth so close that it crossed the so-called Roche boundary, after which it entered the atmosphere and broke up into fragments of various sizes, which fell to the surface of the planet.
The approximate date of the disaster was determined by radiocarbon analysis - it turned out about 5800 years ago. Thus, the catastrophe occurred already in the memory of mankind, in the 4th millennium BC. e., when the civilizations of antiquity began to emerge, leaving behind monuments of writing. In them we find mythologized references to the second natural satellite of the planet and the catastrophe caused by its fall. For example, on the clay tablets of Sumer, the goddess Innana is described, crossing the sky and emitting a frightening radiance. An echo of the same events is, apparently, ancient greek myth about Phaeton.
The luminous celestial body is mentioned by Babylonian, Egyptian, Old Norse sources, myths of the peoples of Oceania. The English ethnologist J. Fraser notes that out of 130 Indian tribes of Central and South America there is not one in whose myths this theme would not be reflected.
“There is nothing surprising in all this,” writes the American astronomer M. Papper, “after all, metal meteorites are very clearly visible in flight. Reflecting sunlight, they sparkle much brighter than stone meteorites; as for a large fireball made of pure iron, its luminosity in the night sky should have exceeded the luminosity of the Moon in its brightness.
The elliptical orbit, along which the fireball moved, assumed that at certain periods the passage of this object was close to the Earth. At the same time, the car was in contact with upper layers atmosphere and became so hot that its brilliance should have been visible even in daylight. As the object approached our planet, its luminosity increased, causing panic among the population. According to M. Papper, the orbit that made the fireball then heat up when in contact with the earth's atmosphere, then, moving away from it, freeze again in the icy cold of space, and led to the destruction of it into pieces. Judging by the rather large area on which the fragments scattered - from South America to Australia - the fireball broke up while still in orbit and entered the Earth's atmosphere in the form of a string of separate fragments. The fireball could have caused the Flood
The largest pieces, according to experts, fell into the Pacific Ocean, causing unprecedented waves that could bypass the Earth. In the legends of the Indians of the Amazon basin, it is said that stars fell from heaven, a terrible roar and roar was heard, and everything plunged into darkness, and then a downpour fell on the earth, which flooded the whole world. “The water rose to a great height,” says one of the Brazilian legends, “and the whole earth was submerged in water. The darkness and the rain didn't stop. People fled, not knowing where to hide; climbed the most tall trees and mountains." The Brazilian legend is echoed by the fifth book of the Mayan code “Chilam Balam”: “The stars fell from heaven, crossed the firmament with a fiery plume, the earth was covered with ashes, rumbled, trembled and cracked, shaking with tremors. The world was falling apart."
All these legends are about a catastrophe accompanied by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and floods. Its epicenter was clearly in southern hemisphere, because as you move north, the nature of the myths changes. Traditions only speak of severe flood. It was this event that, apparently, was preserved in the memory of the Sumerians and Babylonians and found its most bright embodiment in the famous biblical myth of the Flood.
The moon is the closest and most mysterious satellite of our planet at the present time. Much about the moon modern science unable to explain. For example, the fact that the Moon is always turned to us on one side, that the relief of the invisible part of the Moon is radically different from the opposite, as if these are two completely different celestial bodies formed at different times. But the Earth did not always have one moon, as it does now. 
The Slavic-Aryan Vedas and other ancient sources say that the Earth originally had two moons. This is a small moon - Lelya and a large one - the Month. Lelya revolved around the Earth with a period of revolution of 7 days. The month had a circulation period of 29.5 days. The moons were gravitationally stabilizing satellites of our planet, allowing us to maintain the necessary eccentricity of the orbit, slowing down or accelerating its rotation. Thus, the length of the year and the number of days in a month were precisely regulated. But the moons were also the perfect springboard for invasion and takeover of the planet. Such events are narrated in the Vedas.
More than 150,000 years ago, another stellar battle was going on in our galaxy. She touched our solar system. A grandiose battle broke out for the possession of the planet Phaethon. The planet Phaethon had two moons: Fatta and Letitia. Fatta was a larger satellite of Phaeton and border forces were located on it to repel possible attack. However, the enemies managed to capture Letizia as a springboard for striking. It was decided to move (teleport) Phaethon through the other world to another star system along with the population. After that, a powerful blow was dealt to Letizia. There was a colossal explosion and Letitia was destroyed. However, the explosion was so powerful that it blew away most of the atmosphere from Mars and from several moons of Jupiter, which were located on the side of Phaethon. After these events, the moon Fatta became the third satellite of the Earth. Month and Lelya were in their orbits and Fatta was placed between them. Fatta rotated in the equatorial plane of the earth. Due to the fact that Fatta was not much smaller than the Moon, and had a high rotation speed, under the influence of Fatta and the Earth, Lelya acquired an egg-shaped shape. Due to the rotation of three moons around the Earth, its climate began to change, new species of plants and animals appeared. (In astrological calculations, in addition to the Moon, so-called "fictitious planets" are still used: the Black Moon - Lilith (Lelya) and the White Moon - Selena (Fatta)).
About 112,000 years ago, the moon Lelya was captured and significant forces were concentrated on it by enemies. (In the Vedas they are called "Koshchei - the rulers of the grays." Here the fantastic story of the Strugatsky brothers "It's hard to be a god" and the film of the same name by Alexei German come to mind). There is a real threat of the capture of the Earth. Then Tarkh Perunovich (Curator and patron of Russia) was forced to destroy the moon Lelya along with all the enemies on it. The blow was dealt at the moment when Lelya and Month were on one side of the earth, and Fatta on the other. Moreover, the Moon was already ahead of Lelya in its movement in orbit. Since it was the closest moon to us, unfortunately, disaster could not be avoided. The fragments of the destroyed moon, for the most part, flew into space beyond the orbit of the Moon, causing destruction on it and removing the atmosphere from it, and several large fragments fell to Earth. This caused the first Flood and consequently the first ice Age in the history of the earth. Because of this, the northern continent of Daaria (Arctida, Hyperborea), where the main population of the Earth lived at that time, sank into the depths of the ocean. Since there were 50 salty seas on Lela and it had its own atmosphere, the waters of the Arctic Ocean became salty (before that they were fresh). Changed not only appearance Earth, but also the temperature regime on the planet. The axis of the Earth began pendulum movement, its inclination changed. An intensive shift of continental plates began with the formation of new mountain ranges and land spaces. But people were warned in advance by a priest named Spas, who had a vision during the service, that such a catastrophe could happen. He began to calculate the movement of the moons and found that such an event could very well occur. It was decided to start the resettlement of human clans to the southern territories of the Earth, which by that time had already begun to be freed from water. Daaria was sinking gradually, so for 15 years people gradually moved along the narrow isthmus Ural mountains to the territory of modern Trans-Urals and Siberia.
More than 13,000 years ago, a new threat of planetary catastrophe arose. She was associated with the highest caste of the priests of Atlantis. They decided to take over the rest of the world. Throughout the Earth, where possible, special psychotronic installations were built. They suppressed people's will, forcing them to obey the highest caste of Atlantis, to violate all the foundations and commandments by which people lived in those days. The response to such actions was the construction of anti-psychotronic installations that blocked the effects of negative radiation. As a result, many people began to free themselves from the influence of the installations of Atlantis, and life began to gradually return to normal. But foreign enemies did not calm down, but decided to destroy the moon Fatta and bring down its fragments on the territory of Russia. For this purpose, the construction of an installation under the GPP (gravitational-plasma gun) began, disguised as the "Temple of Great Power". When the elders of the families of Russia found out about this, at a general meeting it was decided to create a VKR (Great Kolo Rosiniya) system to repel a possible strike. And in Atlantis, in turn, they tried to complete the construction of the GPP as soon as possible. And they almost succeeded.
Simultaneous impact from several installations powered by force fields Earth split Fatta into many pieces. These fragments hit the Earth. All defensive systems on Fatta were instantly destroyed, along with the personnel serving them. So, the system of the protective dome of Russia, put into operation, only partially saved the situation, because not all power plants were completed. And yet, most of the large fragments were destroyed, and some were redirected towards Atlantis. These fragments fell into the sea, causing a tsunami of great height, which swallowed Atlantis along with most of its population. The waves circled the globe three times, causing great destruction everywhere. Many large fragments fell into the waters of the current Pacific Ocean, causing the movement of tectonic plates and numerous volcanic eruptions. The fall of the largest fragment caused a change in the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit. Dust from the destroyed fragments, as well as numerous volcanic eruptions, led to a decrease in the Earth's temperature by several degrees, and to the subsequent glaciation of the polar regions. Thus began the second ice age in the history of the Earth. Civilization was thrown far back in its development. At the council of the priests of many peoples, it was decided to conceal technical information regarding all kinds of weapons in order to avoid a repetition of such a tragedy in the future. After the atmosphere began to gradually clear and nature was restored, people who had escaped in the underground temple complexes began to come out of their shelters and gradually almost re-explore the Earth. For the rest of mankind began new stage life and spiritual development on Earth.
The moon is a familiar part of the night landscape. She lights the way for couples in love, controls the ebb and flow, and causes werewolves to appear in horror films. But what if our planet had two satellites? Scientists say: no good.
Take two
Let's start with the fact that our Moon was formed 4.5 billion years ago when a huge asteroid the size of Mars flew into the Earth. The debris from the impact flew into orbit and after some time turned into the familiar Moon. And people were very lucky that at that time they were not yet on the planet.
A second moon would also bring a lot of trouble. Firstly, in order for it to appear, a good block from space is also needed. But even if we skip the period of formation of the second satellite and go to the moment when two moons appear in the Earth's sky at once, there is little positive.
The new moon's gravitational pull would create tides eight times our current ones, with huge tidal waves larger than anything we've ever seen. This will lead to earthquakes and more volcanic activity, which will continue for many years and eventually lead to the mass extinction of marine life, which will affect the overall ecological situation. In addition, coastal cities will cease to exist from destructive waves: New York, San Francisco, Sydney, St. Petersburg.
Lots of water and light
When the situation more or less improves, life on Earth will be completely different. At night it will be much brighter than during the day, thanks to the reflected light of two satellites at once. And the darkness of the night "at least gouge out your eye" will be much less common.
True, some researchers are sure that the Earth already has two or even more satellites. The fact is that the planet "picks up" small asteroids that fly by, and they begin to rotate in the earth's orbit for several weeks or months before they again go to space trip.
Of course, such babies are unlikely to seriously affect what is happening on Earth. But such "colleagues" of the Moon are better than a full-fledged brother who is able to turn our lives around.
Mankind has only now learned that the Earth has one more satellite besides the Moon.
The second satellite of the Earth, astronomers say, is different from big moon the fact that it completes a complete revolution around the Earth in 789 years. Its orbit is shaped like a horseshoe, and is at a distance comparable to the distance from Earth to Mars. A satellite cannot approach our planet closer than 30 million kilometers, which is 30 times further than the distance to the moon.
Relative motion Earth and Cruitney in their orbits.
Scientists say that the second natural satellite of the Earth is the near-Earth asteroid Cruitney. Its peculiarity is that it crosses the orbits of three planets: Earth, Mars and Venus.
The diameter of the second Moon is only five kilometers, and this natural satellite of our planet will come as close as possible to Earth in two thousand years. At the same time, scientists do not expect the Earth to collide with the Kruitni approaching our planet.
The satellite will pass from the planet at a distance of 406385 kilometers. At this point, the Moon will be in the constellation Leo. The satellite of our planet will be fully visible, but the size of the Moon will be 13 percent smaller than at the time of its closest approach to the Earth. A collision is not predicted in this case: the Earth's orbit does not intersect Cruitney's orbit anywhere, since the latter is in a different orbital plane and is inclined to the Earth's orbit at an angle of 19.8 °.
Also, according to experts, in 7899 years our second moon will pass very close to Venus and there is a possibility that Venus will attract it to itself and thereby we will lose Kruitni.
The new moon Cruitney was discovered on October 10, 1986 by British amateur astronomer Duncan Waldron. Duncan noticed him in a picture from the Schmidt telescope. From 1994 to 2015, the maximum annual approach of this asteroid to the Earth occurs in November.
Due to the very large eccentricity, the orbital velocity of this asteroid changes much more strongly than that of the Earth, so from the point of view of an earthly observer, if we take the Earth as a reference frame and consider it stationary, it turns out that not the asteroid, but its orbit revolves around the Sun, while the asteroid itself begins to describe ahead of the Earth a horseshoe-shaped trajectory, resembling a "bean" in shape, with a period equal to the period of the asteroid's revolution around the Sun - 364 days.
Cruitney will approach Earth again in June 2292. The asteroid will make a series of annual approaches to the Earth at a distance of 12.5 million km, as a result of which there will be a gravitational exchange of orbital energy between the Earth and the asteroid, which will lead to a change in the asteroid's orbit and Cruitney will again begin to migrate away from the Earth, but this time in the other direction , - it will lag behind the Earth.
