A small asteroid affected by Earth’s gravitational pull is set to become its second “mini-moon” for a limited amount of time.
Citing newly published research, Space.com reported Wednesday that an asteroid belonging to the Arjuna belt will be sufficiently close to Earth and moving slowly enough to be pulled closer.
“Under these conditions, the geocentric energy of the object may grow negative, and the object may become a temporary moon of Earth,” Universidad Complutense de Madrid professor Carlos de la Fuente Marcos told the website.
The celestial occurrence is expected to last from September 29 to November 25, when the asteroid will return to the belt from which it came, The Guardian reported Thursday.
The asteroid, labelled 2024 PT5, will once more orbit Earth in 2055.
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However, amateur astronomers looking forward to getting a glimpse of the exciting occurrence are set to be disappointed. Only 10 meters long (equivalent of 32 feet), the tiny asteroid will not be discernible via basic telescopes.
Illustrative: An asteroid (Courtesy NASA)
“The object is too small and dim for typical amateur telescopes and binoculars,” Marcos told Space.com. “However, [it] is well within the brightness range of typical telescopes used by professional astronomers.”
Short-term engagements such as this are quite common and take place numerous times in a decade, the website said. However, long-term orbits around Earth are rarer occurrences which take place once in a decade or two.
“You may say that if a true satellite is like a customer buying goods inside a store, objects like 2024 PT5 are window shoppers,” Marcos told Space.com.
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