New Delhi: It may come as a great relief and news for the lovers of space, astronomy, and other stellar related stuff. One day an asteroid may end up slowing down due to the gravitational pull exerted by Earth thus becoming the mini-moon.
And in so doing that will mean that our own planet will be having two moons. Despite the opinions of the specialists, people going to be able to observe it is described as an extremely unique and completely inimitable phenomenon that occurs in space.
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Earth is about to gain a temporary mini-moon—asteroid 2024 PT5. Discovered on August 7, 2024, this asteroid is roughly 10 meters (33 feet) in diameter and will be captured by Earth's gravity from September 29 to November 25, 2024.
— Erika (@ExploreCosmos_) September 13, 2024
During this time, the asteroid will loop around… pic.twitter.com/xDZERy3CsS
This is due to 2024 PT5, a new asteroid currently on its path towards the earth, is not one of those that will make a direct impact through the earth’s layers. However, 2024 PT5 will probably be locked in earth’s orbit and end up becoming what we could refer to as a mini-moon.
Still, based on what has been said, 2024 PT5 is likely to remain in the earth’s vicinity for only two months.
The asteroid 2024 PT5 was identified On 7th of August by two astronomers by the names of Carlos de la Fuente Marcos / Raúl de la Fuente Marcos who were from the Complutense University of Madrid utilizing NASA’s Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS).
Carlos de la Fuente Marcos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos have mentioned that 2024 PT5 is a very small object with the diameter of about ten meters or thirty-three feet and will be soon captured by Earth’s orbit only between September 29 and November 25. The 2024 PT5 will fly around the Earth for two months where it will not be able to make a full orbit around the Earth and will also come out of the Earth’s gravitational field and fall back in the Sun’s orbit and will also continue its travel around the solar system as per the information published in the Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society.
To state it in simpler terms, starting the last days of the year there will be two moons in the earth with an option of 56. 6 days.
‘It is pretty cool! 2024 PT5 will help scientists learn more about these Near Earth Asteroids (some of them occasionally hit Earth)’ noted Federica Spoto, an asteroid dynamics researcher at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian.
Mini-moon
The 2024 PT5 is ‘unlikely to be artificial’ and is definitely not a piece of space debris floating around for it to have the rights abducted. The defined description of asteroids that the researchers propose could be referred to as a near-Earth object with an orbit similar to that of our planet.