The earth has other companions besides the moon. There are asteroids that have orbits similar to earth’s orbit. The following is an excerpt from an article discussing a couple of neat ones. September 2002 An international team of astronomers has found that an asteroid discovered earlier this year follows Earth's orbit around the Sun and will, in nearly 600 years, appear to orbit the Earth. In the October issue of the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science, the astronomers announce that the asteroid, named 2002 AA29, follows a "horseshoe orbit" that makes it come near the Earth every 95 years. It will next come close on January 8, 2003, although even then it will be much further away than the Moon and only detectable using large telescopes. The combination of Earth's and Sun's gravity works so that even as Earth pulls in the asteroid, it speeds up and moves away from the Earth. In this way Earth is protected from impact, despite the similarity of the asteroid's orbit to Earth's. If you are interested, the complete article is located at the following URL http://www.astro.uwo.ca/%7Ewiegert/AA29/AA29.html Jim