Madrid. A small asteroid was trapped by Earth’s gravity, so our natural satellite accompanies a small moon from Sunday to November 25, although due to its distance and small size it can only be seen with professional telescopes.
The name of this temporary moon is 2024 PT5, and it is an object that was discovered on August 7 by a telescope from the ATLAS project from South Africa. Astronomers from the Spanish Complutense University (Madrid), Carlos and Raul de la Fuente Marcos, conducted calculations that concluded that the asteroid will collide with the Earth, a phenomenon that is not the first time other similar objects have occurred.
“When his data was published we realized that it would pass close to the ground and at a low speed. We made calculations and verified that the arrest had occurred,” Carlos de la Fuente Marcos told EFE.
2024 PT5 is the largest small moon known to date, and the researcher says that its size ranges from 5 to 40 meters, and it will remain near the Earth for 56.6 days, after which it will regain its central solar path.
According to the latest available data from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Horizons system, the temporary capture began on September 29 and will end on November 25.
This object is part of the so-called Argonas – identified de la Fuente Marcos – which form the belt of asteroids closest to Earth and orbit the Sun at approximately the same distance, shape and angle as our planet, and are the ones that would experience minimum rings.
The small asteroid could be material ejected from the moon during the impact that created a crater, some data suggest, but infrared spectroscopy would be necessary to confirm that.
He pointed out, “What is clear is that it is not an artificial object, or space junk.” Right now, there are several collaborations actively looking into this object and new announcements will definitely be made in the coming weeks.
The new moon has a horseshoe-shaped path, “which makes it easier to catch, but does not guarantee it.”
During the approximately two months that it will remain with our planet, the average distance between the asteroid and Earth will be 0.0250 astronomical units, which is “much greater than that which separates us from the Moon, and therefore there is no risk of collision.”
He will return in 2055
In general, creatures that experience these spells do so repeatedly. Thus, 2024 PT5 “will again be a small moon briefly in 2055 and possibly in 2084,” as asteroid 2022 NX1 was in 1981 and in 2022.
Capture episodes can be of two types depending on their duration. The short period is days, weeks, or a few months, and the body does not complete its orbit around the Earth. This will be the case with 2024 PT5.
Long asteroids can last a year or more and the body completes one or more orbits around the Earth, as did asteroids 2006 RH120 and 2020 CD3.
“The short ones seem to occur relatively frequently, every two or three years, and the long ones every 10, 20 or 30 years. They’re not well known, because the known population is still small.
De la Fuente Marcos noted that talk of Minimons began in the 1990s, “with the 1991 VG, which was initially thought to be a spaceship.”
He said that the greatest interest in “mini-sats” is the ability to make low-cost visits to them, with the aim of collecting mineral samples that can be analyzed on Earth or for space mining projects.
“That’s why it’s important to predict when they will happen,” de la Fuente Marcos said.
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