- The space rock will temporarily be trapped by Earth’s gravity and orbit around it for about two months.
- The mini-moon will circle Earth for nearly 57 days but won’t complete a full orbit.
- On November 25, it will depart from Earth and continue its solo trajectory through the cosmos.
Earth’s moon will soon have some company: a “mini-moon.” This mini-moon is an asteroid about the size of a school bus, measuring 10 meters. When it whizzes by Earth on Sunday, it will temporarily get trapped by our planet’s gravity and orbit around it—but only for about two months.
Astronomers at the Complutense University of Madrid first spotted the space rock, 2024 PT5, in August using a powerful telescope located in Sutherland, South Africa. Richard Binzel, an astronomer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, noted that these short-lived mini-moons are likely more common than we realize. The last known mini-moon was detected in 2020.
“This happens with some frequency, but we rarely see them because they’re very small and very hard to detect,” he said. “Only recently has our survey capability reached the point of spotting them routinely.”
Carlos de la Fuente Marcos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos published their discovery with the American Astronomical Society.
This one won’t be visible to the naked eye or through amateur telescopes, but it “can be observed with relatively large, research-grade telescopes,” Carlos de la Fuente Marcos said in an email.
Binzel, who did not participate in the research, noted that it’s unclear whether the space rock originated as an asteroid or as “a chunk of the moon that got blasted out.”
The mini-moon will circle the Earth for nearly 57 days but won’t complete a full orbit. On November 25, it will depart from Earth and continue its solo trajectory through the cosmos, with an expected return in 2055.
[embedpost slug=”nasa-successfully-opens-asteroid-capsule-in-milestone-mission/’]
