As reported by Olhar Digital, researchers discovered that a small asteroid called 2024 PT 5 has been taking on the role of Earth’s minimoon since last Sunday (29).
Unlike the Moon, which has accompanied the planet for billions of years, this object will transit around the Earth for just two months before making its way back to the asteroid belt of which it is part.
About 10 meters wide, about the length of a school bus, this space rock was held back by Earth’s gravity during a close pass and is expected to remain in our orbit until November 25, when it will return to its usual path around the Earth. Sun.
However, answering the question in the title of this text, no, the new minimoon will not be visible to the naked eye. To give you an idea, asteroid 2024 PT5 is around 300,000 times smaller than the Moon. Its tiny size and low luminosity make observation with common amateur telescopes or binoculars almost impossible.
Orbit of asteroid 2024 PT5 close to Earth. Credit: SSD/JPL/NASA
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Minimoon is just stopping by Earth
The discovery of the object was made by a team of scientists specializing in “minimoon events”, who constantly monitor space in search of objects with unusual behavior.
According to the research, published in the journal The Research Notes of the AAS, 2024 PT5 belongs to the Arjuna asteroid belt, a group of space rocks that follow Earth-like orbits, around 150 million kilometers from the Sun.
Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, professor at the Complutense University of Madrid and main author of the study, explained to the website Space.com that the asteroids in the Arjuna belt are part of a population of objects close to Earth.
10-meter asteroid will be temporarily trapped by Earth’s gravity from September 29th to November 25th. Credit: Gabriel Sérvio/Image created by DALL-E
According to him, some of these objects can approach at a distance of 4.5 million kilometers from our planet, at a relatively low speed of 3,540 km/h. “Under these conditions, the object’s geocentric energy may become negative and the object may become a temporary moon of Earth. This particular object will go through this process for about two months,” said Marcos. “It will not follow a complete orbit around the Earth.”
According to the professor, this temporary capture is comparable to a customer looking at a window, without actually entering the store – “just stopping by”.
The study led by Marcos points out that 2024 PT5 should pass close to Earth again in January 2025 and then only in 2055.
It is worth noting that this is not the first temporary asteroid to accompany Earth. The first observed by humans was 2006 RH120, which measured around six meters wide and remained in orbit between 2006 and 2007. Another example is 2020 CD3, which circled our planet for three years until moving away in 2020 – find out more about Earth’s mini moons here.
The capture of minimoons raises discussions about their potential use as “stepping stones” for future asteroid mining missions and deeper exploration of the Solar System.
