Earth is set to gain a temporary second moon! A small asteroid, dubbed 2024 PT5, will enter orbit around our planet for approximately two months without any risk of collision.
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Earth Is Temporarily Getting a Second Moon - TIME https://t.co/DILGSBkQyj — Robert Hove 🇺🇸🇳🇴 (@robert_hove) September 19, 2024
According to a study published in the Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society, this "mini-moon" will be captured by Earth's gravity and will remain in orbit until late November.
Discovered by the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) on August 7, 2024 PT5 will orbit Earth from September 29 to November 25 before drifting away from our gravitational pull.
Astronomers refer to this phenomenon as a “temporarily captured flyby.” The asteroid has an orbit similar to Earth's, and calculations indicate it will return to orbit our planet in January 2025 and again in 2055.
The research paper indicates that Earth has the ability to intermittently capture asteroids from the Near-Earth Object (NEO) population, drawing them into its orbit and converting them into what are referred to as "mini-moons."
The classification of mini-moons is divided into two categories: “temporary captured orbiters,” which can remain in Earth's orbit for several months or even years, completing one or more revolutions, and “temporary captured flybys,” such as the forthcoming mini-moon, which do not achieve a complete orbit and exist for a very short duration.
NASA defines any celestial object located within approximately 120 million miles (190 million kilometers) of Earth as a "near-Earth object," while larger entities within 4.7 million miles (7.5 million kilometers) are classified as "potentially hazardous."
Researchers have noted that the recently identified Apollo-class NEO 2024 PT5 follows a trajectory akin to that of 2022 NX1 and may soon transition into a mini-moon.
Paul Chodas, the director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has suggested that 2024 PT5 could be a fragment expelled from the Moon as a result of an impact, implying that this mini-moon may have originated from the Moon itself, as reported by the New York Times.
Starting September 29, Earth will gain a second moon as asteroid 2024 PT5 enters orbit… pic.twitter.com/9Xogo1n60F — Science Guy PhD (@ScienceGuyPhD) September 19, 2024
NASA monitors approximately 28,000 asteroids using ATLAS, a network of four telescopes that surveys the entire night sky every 24 hours.
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