Exciting news for space enthusiasts! 🌍✨ Earth is about to gain a temporary \"mini moon\" – an asteroid named 2024 PT5.
This space rock, roughly the size of a school bus at 33 feet (10 meters), will be captured by Earth's gravity and orbit our planet for nearly two months. While it won't complete a full orbit, this mini moon will journey around Earth for about 57 days before continuing its solo trek through space on November 25. The asteroid is expected to make another close approach in 2055.
Discovered in August by astronomers Carlos de la Fuente Marcos and Raul de la Fuente Marcos from the Complutense University of Madrid, 2024 PT5 was spotted using a powerful telescope in Sutherland, South Africa. According to Richard Binzel, an astronomer at MIT, these short-lived mini moons are more common than we realize, though they’re usually too small to detect. “This happens with some frequency, but we rarely see them because they're very small and very hard to detect,” Binzel explained.
While this mini moon won’t be visible to the naked eye or through amateur telescopes, it can be observed with larger, research-grade instruments. The discovery was published by the American Astronomical Society, highlighting the advancements in our ability to spot these fleeting celestial visitors.
Scientists are still unsure whether 2024 PT5 is a standalone asteroid or a fragment from the moon’s surface. Regardless of its origin, this mini moon offers a unique opportunity for researchers to study temporary satellite captures and better understand the dynamic interactions between Earth and near-Earth objects.
