When California amateur astronomer Bill Yeung found a mysterious object circling Earth in early September, the buzz was that he might have discovered a second moon. Alas, it appears to be something much more mundane.
Analyzing the object’s orbit, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Arizona in Tucson have concluded that the body is the third stage of the Saturn V rocket used in the Apollo 12 mission to the moon that was launched by NASA Nov.