Look up at the sky, and you might think you’re seeing a bird, a plane, or maybe even Superman. But no – it’s actually something a little more unexpected: Earth’s second moon!
Asteroids usually do one of three things when they get too close to Earth: they crash into us, miss us, or, like asteroid 2024 PT5, get caught by Earth’s gravity.
This space rock started orbiting our planet in late September, but it won’t be here for long. According to NASA, it will break free from Earth’s grasp next Monday, precisely at 4:43 PM.
Now, don’t get too excited. This “mini-moon” is still quite far away at 3,760,000 kilometers. That may sound like a lot – or at least the distance between you and your TV remote – but in space terms, it’s pretty close.
And when we say “mini,” we really mean it. Asteroid 2024 PT5 is only about 37 feet long, or roughly the size of a bus. For comparison, the actual moon is over 11 million feet wide.
This little guy has traveled a long way to get here. Scientists think it comes from the Arjuna asteroid belt, a ring of space debris that’s about 93 million miles away from the Sun. Some even believe it might be a chunk of Earth’s Moon that was knocked off in an ancient crash and just happened to find its way back.
The asteroid was first spotted by scientists at Complutense University of Madrid using a powerful NASA-funded telescope in South Africa.
So what’s the deal with these “mini-moons”? They’re basically asteroids or comets that pass by Earth, sometimes getting caught in our gravity. While some turn out to be just space junk, others are more interesting. The thing is, mini-moons are hard to spot, and only a few have been seen since the 1980s.
Asteroid 2022 NX1 was another mini-moon that made a visit a couple of years ago. It had actually been caught by Earth’s gravity before, back in 1981, and will swing by again in 2051.
However, asteroid 2024 PT5 might be too small to officially count as a mini-moon. For it to be considered one, it needs to orbit Earth in a full circle, but this asteroid’s path looks more like a horseshoe – it’s on its way back out into space.
NASA says 2024 PT5 will be back in January before it continues its journey around the Sun. Looks like this little guy can’t stay with us for too long!
