Earth now has a temporary mini-moon in addition to our natural satellite – the moon. The tiny asteroid named PT5 will orbit our planet for about two months before continuing its journey into interstellar space.
First spotted by astronomers at the Complutense University of Madrid, the little visitor is just 33 feet or 10 meters wide and will be temporarily trapped by our planet’s gravitational force till 11:43 AM EDT (9 PM IST) on November 25. To give you an idea, the PT5 asteroid is 3,00,000 smaller than the moon.
According to Earth.com, the PT5 asteroid, also known as 2024 PT5 is part of the Arjuna asteroid belt, a group of asteroids 93 million miles away from our planet with an Earth-like orbit.
However, unlike our moon, the temporary mini-moon won’t complete a full orbit around our planet and is not visible to the naked eye as well as telescopes due to its small size but it can be tracked using typical telescopes used by professionals.
While 2024 PT5 is not technically a mini-moon as it won’t complete a full-revolution, but instead the path followed by the tiny object will be in the shape of a horseshoe.
To watch the new mini-moon, you will need a telescope with a diameter of at least 30 inches and a CCD or CMOS detector. Also known as a Near Earth object (NEO), the first mini-moon named 1991 VG was spotted back in 1991.
While the first mini-moon did not complete a full revolution around the planet like the newly captured PT5 asteroid, Earth did have a mini-moon that orbited for a full year. Discovered in 2006, Asteroid 2006 RH120 remained in our planet’s gravitational pull until July 2007.