This fall the earth will have two moons

Until November 25, the Earth will have two moons, as pointed out by the brothers Carlos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos, both astronomers and members of the research group Aegora of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM).

They are the ones who, based on a study with computer simulations, assure that the asteroid 2024 PT5 newly discovered will be temporarily captured by Earth. It will become our minimoon until the end of November. The details have just been published in the magazine Research Notes of the AAS.

According to their estimates, the actual size would be in the range of 15 to 20 meters. It was discovered on August 7 from South Africa with the Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System (ATLASfor its acronym in English). This is robotic equipment capable of detecting smaller near-Earth objects before their possible impact on our planet.

Asteroid converted into our satellite

Upon receiving this alert, the two Spanish astronomers began to make their calculations until they concluded that during the next few weeks, this asteroid will become our satellite, although it will not go around completely, but only an arc of the orbit. An event that will not be repeated until 2055 and possibly 2084.

We speak of minimoon events when “the Near-Earth Objects (NEO) follow horseshoe trajectories and approach our planet at a short distance and at low relative speed” and their geocentric energy becomes negative for hours, days or months, but without completing a revolution around it.

An example of NEO “experiencing a temporally captured flyby is 2022 NX1, which was a short-lived minimoon in 1981 and 2022,” the astronomers illustrate. “Here we show that the recently discovered small body 2024 PT5 follows a horseshoe trajectory and will become a minimoon until November 25.”

A mini moon of the moon

According to NASA, Given the similarity between the movement of asteroid 2024 PT5 and that of our planet, scientists at NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) suspect that the object could be a large piece of rock ejected from the surface of the Moon after an asteroid impact long ago. Rocket bodies from historical launches can also be found in Earth-like orbits, but after analysis of the motion of this object, it has been determined that 2024 PT5 is more likely to have a natural origin.

This object will remain accompanying our planet for a limited time at a distance approximately nine times farther from Earth than the Moon.

Ambientum Editorial