Today (September 20, 2024), foreign news agencies reported that researchers from the Terrestrial Asteroid Impact Warning System, an asteroid tracking system funded by NASA, have discovered an asteroid. in Sutherland South Africa and named it 2024 PT5
This asteroid will be about the size of a bus, about 10 meters long, which is very small compared to the Earth’s moon. which has a diameter of about 3,474 kilometers and is pulled by the Earth’s gravity. and circles our planet for about 2 months and becomes a “minimoon” (Minimoon) that spends the orbit from September 29 to November 25, which is about 4.5 million kilometers away from the Earth before it breaks the he orbits the sun. and is expected to return to Earth orbit again in 2055.
Professor Carlos de la Fuente Marcos from Universidad Complutense de Madrid and the director of the research said that the asteroid is in the asteroid belt “Arjuna” which is a secondary asteroid belt with an orbit similar to the Earth. asteroid slowly, with a speed of about 3,540 km/h, the Earth’s gravity will have a greater effect on the path of the asteroid than usual. For this reason, the asteroid can act as a temporary moon of the Earth. But if it was a telescope box used by a professional astronomer, it would be visible.
This asteroid is not the first “minimoon” to visit Earth. But there have been two previous “minimoon” events, in 1981 and 2022.
