Earth-orbiting asteroid could be a piece of the Moon, experts propose

2023-05-04 17:12:18

A new hypothesis revolves around the Moon and its past, since now the possibility is raised that the asteroid Kamo’ oalewa (469219), which orbits the Earth from afar, is actually a piece of our satellite.

This is proposed by a new study by José Daniel Castro-Cisneros, an astronomer in the Department of Physics at the University of Arizona.

“Given its Earth-like orbit and its physical resemblance to lunar surface materials, we explored the hypothesis that it might have originated as a fragment of debris from a meteoroid impact with the lunar surface.“, explains in are paper.

As detailed by the media Science Alert, the asteroid Kamo’ oalewa was discovered in 2016 and is considered an unusual objectsince its orbit is constantly changing, but it always remains tied to Earth.

In addition, it also has a curious surface that reflects light just like the moon because of the silicates (silicic acid salts) in your soil. Besides, enters the group of 9 quasi-satellites that the Earth haswhich are so named because they orbit outside the planet’s circle of dominant gravitational force.

With this background, Castro-Cisneros proposes this hypothesis and now studies the orbit of the particular object to determine whether or not it corresponds to a fragment of the Moon.

Could Kamo’ Oalewa be a piece of the Moon?

To have more accurate results, the study scientists conducted “numerical simulations of dynamic evolution of particles ejected from different locations on the lunar surface with a range of ejection velocities.

This they did to recreate when ejections were generated from the Moon by collisions with meteoritesthese fragments are attracted by the gravitational force of the Sun, which influences the entire Solar System, but there is a small percentage that is not attracted by the star.

“As these ejecta escape the Earth-Moon environment and evolve toward heliocentric orbits, we find that a small fraction of the launch conditions produce results that are compatible with the dynamic behavior of Kamo’ oalewasays the study.

On the other hand, they also noticed the elliptical inclination of the object, which is 8°, a number that was considered “large” compared to the objects that were ejected from the Moon, which are around between 1° and 3°. However, in the simulation some even surpassed the inclination of Kamo’ oalewa.

Despite these promising findings, experts warn that more detailed studies are lacking to determine if this asteroid really is a fragment of the Moon.

At the moment, some missions are already being prepared that might help this cause, such as the nano-lander of the Chinese Tianwen-2 mission, which will be sent in 2025 and will orbit near Kamo’ oalewa.

1683221138
#Earthorbiting #asteroid #piece #Moon #experts #propose