Dubai: Earth bade farewell to a “mini-moon” on Monday (October 25) after it tagged along for the past two months. Unlike the moon, the “mini-moon” wasn’t expected to stick around.
The space rock will return to its usual home in the Arjuna asteroid belt after coming under the stronger tug of the sun’s gravity. The secondary asteroid belt circles in an orbit close to that of Earth at an average distance of about 150 million kilometres from the sun, a report in Space.com said.
First spotted in August, the near-Earth asteroid (NEO) 2024 PT5 began its trip around Earth on September 29, 2024, after coming under gravitational influence and following a horseshoe-shaped path. Scientists studying this “second moon” knew this would be a “temporary capture” lasting no longer than a few weeks, the report added.
A boulder from the moon
The astrophysicist brothers, Raul and Carlos de la Fuente Marcos of the Complutense University of Madrid, who identified the asteroid’s “mini-moon behaviour,” collaborated with telescopes in the Canary Islands for hundreds of observations, an Associated Press report said.
The study deepened scientists’ understanding of the object known as 2024 PT5, quite possibly a boulder blasted off the moon by an impacting, crater-forming asteroid.
While not technically a moon, it’s “an interesting object”, the AP report added, quoting NASA. Astronomers will have to wait a while for the next return of 2024 PT5, and its closest approach is set for November 8, 2055.
