Shafaqna – In the past weeks, the Earth’s orbit hosted a small asteroid, which temporarily turned into a “second moon,” but soon our planet’s gravity will return to orbit around the Sun.
This celestial body is 2024 PT5. It entered Earth’s orbit on September 29, and will remain in the sky until November 25 before beginning its journey around the Sun.
The asteroid was discovered for the first time on August 7, 2024 by the Asteroid Impact Warning System, known as “ATLAS”, which is a scientific project aimed at monitoring near-Earth asteroids and assess the potential of their influence. The system relies on an array of telescopes to monitor the sky quickly and efficiently, allowing scientists to predict any asteroids that may pose a threat to our planet.
Earth occasionally picks up small asteroids, such as 2024 PT5, and places them in temporary orbits around our planet.
While most asteroids circle the Sun on their normal paths, some come to Earth for a short visit – usually a few weeks or months – before breaking free and traveling start again.
Each “minimoon” gives scientists a rare opportunity to reveal valuable insights into the mechanics of our solar system.
The “minimoons” that are often found are, in fact, pieces of space debris. For example, in 2020, astronauts found a “mini-moon,” but it turned out to be a rocket booster from a previous space mission (Surveyor 2 Centaur) launched in 1966.
What makes asteroid 2024 PT5 special is that it is a real asteroid, not just space debris.
Amateur astronomer Tony Dunne published a simulation on the “X” stage of how the asteroid’s path would appear. 2024 PT5 has already been close to Earth since July.
Looking at this simulation, it appears that the asteroid’s geocentric energy will become negative (which means it will begin to interact with Earth’s gravity in such a way that its gravity pulls the asteroid towards it) and will remain in this state for 56.6 days. The asteroid’s orbit is shown as a red line during the simulation, as it only orbits about 25% of the Earth.
The asteroid will not complete a complete orbit around the Earth, which astronomers call “arrested motion”.
It is unlikely that we will see the “little moon” in the Earth’s sky, because NASA says that the relative brightness of 2024 PT5 is estimated at 27,593. This means that it is very faint and would not be visible even if you had a telescope. For comparison, the brightness visible to the naked eye is about 6.5.
It is worth noting that small whites are not particularly rare. Earth had a “mini-moon” in 2022 thanks to the strange flight path of asteroid 2022 YG. Another “mini-moon” will arrive in 2020 thanks to asteroid 2020 CD3. Some of these objects are bright enough to be seen using non-professional astronomical instruments.
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