Earth to get 'mini-moon' this month
MANILA, Philippines — Earth will have a temporary "mini-moon" beginning this month, reports said.
Several reports cited a study published in Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society.
A team of astronomers spotted the newly discovered asteroid last August 7 using the Asteriod Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System or ATLAS in South Africa.
The group named the asteroid from the Arjuna belt as 2024 PT5. In a CNN report, the asteroid will orbit Earth from September 29 to November 25.
The study's lead author explained to Space.com how 2024 PT5 will temporarily become Earth's mini-moon.
"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 93 million miles (150 million kilometers)," the research's lead author and Universidad Complutense de Madrid professor Carlos de la Fuente Marcos told Space.com.
Marcos said that the objects in the asteroid belt are part of the near-Earth object population of asteroids and comets.
The researcher said that some of these objects in the Arjuna asteroid belt can approach Earth at a close range of around 4.5 million kilometers and at low velocities of around 3,540 kilometers per hour.
"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. It will not follow a full orbit around Earth," Marcos told Space.com.
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