Asteroid 2024 PT5: Earth’s Upcoming ‘Mini-Moon’ Phenomenon Explained

Asteroid 2024 PT5 was discovered on August 7, 2024 by the system ATLAS (Earth Asteroid Impact Last Warning System), in which the University of Hawaii and the American space agency NASA participate in its work. The main task of this system is to detect so-called near-Earth objects and to warn in time about their impact, which could threaten the Earth.

according to scientific studies published by the American Astronomical Society, several near-Earth objects can be periodically attracted by Earth’s gravitational force and Earth’s orbit for a period of time. Then a phenomenon occurs when such a body is captured for a short time by the gravitational force of the Earth and becomes a “mini-moon”.

“The object visiting us belongs to the Arjuna asteroid belt, a secondary asteroid belt made up of space rocks that move in orbits very similar to Earth at an average distance of about 150 million kilometers from the sun,” he told the website. Space.com one of the authors of the research and professor at the University of Madrid Carlos de la Fuente Marcos.

According to Marcos, in order for the objects to become small moons, they must approach the Earth at a distance of 4.5 million km and their speed should be about 3540 km/h. If the object meets these criteria, it will be captured by the Earth’s gravitational pull and orbit around it for a short time.

Asteroid 2024 PT5 will come close enough to Earth to be captured by gravity in late September, according to scientists. According to scientists, this will happen on September 29 at 22:02 CEST. Its geocentric energy will be negative and the object will not be able to escape from the Earth’s gravitational field.

It orbits our planet in a horseshoe shape until it returns to its heliocentric orbit. This phenomenon is expected to occur on November 25 at 11:33 CET, when the asteroid will return to the other objects in the Arjuna asteroid belt and take it around the Sun again.

Asteroid 2024 PT5 is about 10 meters long, so it is very small compared to the Moon and cannot be seen with the naked eye. Even amateur telescopes may not be enough to see it, but it can be seen using professional telescopes used by astronomers.

As the news station remembers BBCit is not a threat to our planet.

Objects can be captured in the long or short term due to the force of the Earth’s gravity. In the past, scientists have identified only two objects that completed one or more orbits around the Earth and thus were captured by the Earth in long periods of time.

The first time this happened was in 2006, when the near-Earth asteroid 2006 RH120 orbited the Earth from July 2006 to July 2007. asteroid 2020 CD3which was captured by Earth probably between 2016 and 2017 and sent around until 2020.

Asteroid 2024 PT5, the third known case, should return to Earth’s area in 2055, according to scientists.