Earth’s moon will soon have some company – a “mini moon”.
The mini moon is actually an asteroid about the size of a school bus at 10 metres.
When it whizzed by Earth on Sunday, 29 September it was temporarily trapped by our planet’s gravity and orbit the globe – but only for about two months.
The space rock – 2024 PT5 – was first spotted in August by astronomers at Complutense University of Madrid using a powerful telescope located in Sutherland in South Africa.
Belongs to the Arjuna asteroid belt
“The object that is going to pay us a visit belongs to the Arjuna asteroid belt, a secondary asteroid belt made of space rocks that follow orbits very similar to that of Earth at an average distance to the sun of about 150 million kilometres, research lead author and Universidad Complutense de Madrid professor Carlos de la Fuente Marcos told Space.com.
“Objects in the Arjuna asteroid belt are part of the near-Earth object population of asteroids and comets.”
Marcos explained that some of these objects in the Arjuna asteroid belt can approach Earth at a close range of around 4.5 million kilometres and at low velocities of around 3 540km/h.
“Under these conditions, the geocentric energy of the object may grow negative, and the object may become a temporary moon of Earth. This particular object will undergo this process starting next week and for about two months,” he added.
“It will not follow a full orbit around Earth.
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