The Detectability of Earth's Temporarily Captured Orbiters

International audience; Natural Earth Satellites (NES) are Temporarily Captured Orbiters (TCO) from the Near Earth Object (NEO) population. Only one, 2006 RH120 has been identified. Granvik et al. (2012) showed that at least one object of 1-meter diameter is in orbit around Earth at any time. The average lifetime of the TCOs is 286 /-18 days. We present the detectability of TCOs in the size range of 0.1 to 1 meters diameter with optical, infrared, radar surveys. Future surveys like the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System that can see objects to V 20 will see TCOs every 120 days and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (V