Second moon ‘mini moon’ to appear from Earth next month: scientists reveal

At the end of this month, a small asteroid ‘Mani’ me‘ will reach the orbit around the earth. Later this space The rock will move to other parts of the solar system.

The 10-meter-wide asteroid, named 2024 PT5, will become a minimoon from September 29 to November 25, astronomers said in a new study published in the journal Research Notes of the AAS.

Earth usually pulls asteroids in for a partial or full orbit, before they are thrown back into space.

For example, one such space rock, 2022 NX One, became a ‘mini-moon’ in 1981 and again briefly in 2022.

Asteroid 2024 PT5, as its name suggests, was discovered last month by scientists who are part of the Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System.

Researchers speculate that this space rock was possibly part of the Moon.

Scientists have estimated the asteroid’s path in the next few months by examining its current size, speed and trajectory.

According to the research, the asteroid is expected to orbit in a horseshoe-shaped orbit and become Earth’s ‘mini-moon’ on September 29 and return to orbit around the Sun about 57 days later on November 25.

After spending a few days in orbit around Earth, the asteroid will soon leave Earth’s vicinity and its next return will be in 2055, scientists say.

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The current path of this asteroid also helped the researchers to ascertain its reality.

Scientists suspect that the asteroid came from the Arjuna Asteroid Belt, a belt of small asteroids orbiting the Sun near Earth with a small number of asteroids.

It is a belt of secondary asteroids in the Solar System that surrounds the path of the Earth and Moon system.

In the past few cases, asteroids that were expected to become Earth’s ‘mini-moons’ turned out to be space debris or man-made spacecraft that were mistakenly labeled as asteroids.

However, in the case of 2024 PT5, researchers say it is ‘unlikely’ to be a man-made object because its short-period orbit is very similar to that of 2022 NX1, a confirmed natural object.

The experts wrote: ‘We show that the recently discovered small object 2024 PT5 is orbiting on a horseshoe-shaped path and will become a minimoon from September 29 to November 25, 2024.’