Earth to get new ‘mini moon’

A little brother for our moon

The asteroid, which has been dubbed a 'mini moon', goes by its real name '2024 PT5' and was discovered by researchers from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid Ciudad Universitaria on 7 August.

The paper, written by Carlos de la Fuente Marcos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos, published in the journal Research Notes of the AAS, detailed the size and orbit of the space rock set to accompany our planet as it flies through space.

The 'mini moon' really does live up to its name, having a length of 10 metres and will orbit Earth for two months, from the 29 September until 25 November.

A moon by definition is any natural satellite that orbits bodies of mass with heightened gravity that are not stars, such as planets or large asteroids.

The asteroid travelling through space will be caught by the gravity of Earth, which is generated by its large mass, and will temporarily alter the asteroids orbit.

This event is not a new phenomenon with our planet hosting other temporary moons before, notably last back in 20006, when a small asteroid circled Earth for about a year.

Meanwhile another asteroid circled Earth for multiple years before escaping the planet's pull in 2020.

This latest 'mini-moon' was uncovered by the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System which was funded by NASA and serves the purpose of identifying asteroids that might pose a threat of an impact with Earth.

However, after calculating the path of the asteroid using size, speed and path, it was established that the space rock would miss the planet, but be caught in its field of gravitational influence.

The researchers found that it likely originated from the Arjuna asteroid belt, which is a field of asteroids with orbits around the sun similar to Earth's.

Sadly, being a magnitude 22 asteroid, our new 'mini-moon' will be too dim to see.

In space, asteroids are made up of rock and metal and can be as small as a meter in size.

Debris from a comet or asteroid between 2mm and a metre in size is known as a meteoroid and if a meteoroid burns up in the atmosphere it becomes a meteor while if it reaches the ground it becomes a meteorite.

A comet is made up of dust, ice and rock.