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Earth will capture a miniature “second moon” this week, according to NASA scientists.
The new moon is actually a small asteroid called 2024 PT5. It will begin orbiting the planet in a horseshoe path and stay there for just under two months before escaping Earth’s gravitational pull and resuming its regular orbit around the sun.
“According to the latest available data from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Horizons System, the temporary capture will begin at 3:54 p.m. EDT (Sunday) and end at 11:43 a.m. EDT on November 25,” said a mini-event expert. moon and Complutense University. Professor Carlos de la Fuente Marcos from Madrid told Space.com.
2024 PT5 is part of “the Arjuna asteroid belt, a secondary asteroid belt composed of space rocks that follow orbits very similar to that of Earth at an average distance from the sun of about 93 million kilometers” , Marcos said.
He added that the asteroid, which poses no threat to the planet, would travel about 2,200 miles per hour while maintaining a distance of about 2.8 million miles from Earth. For comparison, the average distance between Earth and the Moon is 238,855 miles. The moon is also considerably larger, with a diameter of about 2,159 miles compared to the asteroid’s slim 37-foot width.
Unlike the Moon, 2024 PT5 will not be observable by the casual observer due to its size.
“The object is too small and too dark for typical amateur telescopes and binoculars. However, the object is well within the brightness range of typical telescopes used by professional astronomers,” Marcos said.
NASA’s Asteroid Last Impact Warning System first spotted the asteroid on August 7.
Mini-moons have occurred in the past. The asteroid NX1 2022 entered Earth’s orbit in 1981 and 2022, according to BBC News.
“This story highlights how busy our solar system is and how much there is that we haven’t discovered, because this asteroid was only discovered this year,” said astronomer and podcaster Dr. Jennifer Millard at BBC News.
New York Daily News 2024. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Quote: Earth will capture a ‘second moon’ this weekend, NASA says (September 27, 2024) retrieved September 28, 2024 from
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