A group of astronomers from the POT He discovered that a “mini moon” has been orbiting near Earth for the past three years.
It is a rock that turns out to be the rest of an asteroid and whose discovery was made on February 15, although recently it was that they made the announcement in the Minor Planet Center.
Among its characteristics, it is worth highlighting that it has a brightness of the “C” type, which has been explained by the same astronomers, which is very difficult to capture, especially due to weather conditions.
In a statement, scientists say that “no link has been found with a known artificial object” and that it is the second asteroid that planet Earth turns into a “mini-moon” (its size is calculated between what a car measures and / or a washing machine).
BIG NEWS (thread 1/3). Earth has a new temporarily captured object / Possible mini-moon called 2020 CD3. On the night of Feb. 15, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Teddy Pruyne and I found a 20th magnitude object. Here are the discovery images. pic.twitter.com/zLkXyGAkZl
– Kacper Wierzchos (@WierzchosKacper) February 26, 2020
In addition to its brightness, the researchers explained that inside it has carbon, it measures between 1.9 and 3.5 meters in diameter and was named by the members of the Near Earth Observation Program (NEOO), 2020 CD3.
According to expert forecasts, this “mini moon” would be ejected from Earth’s orbit into outer space.
“As we speak, it is already moving away from the Earth-Moon system,” said Grigori Fedorets of Queen’s University in Belfast.
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