Scientists have identified what appears to be a small section of the moon that tracks Earth’s orbit around the sun.
The asteroid, called Kamo`oalewa, was discovered in 2016 but so far relatively little is known about it. New observations suggest that it may have been part of the moon that was thrown into space by an ancient lunar collision.
Camu Aliwa It is one of Earth’s quasars, a class of asteroids that orbit the Sun, but remain relatively close to the planet – in this case about 9 meters.
Although astronomically close, the asteroid is the size of a ferris wheel and about 4 million times fainter than the faintest star visible to the naked eye. Thus, the most powerful telescopes on Earth are needed to make observations.
Using the Big Eye Telescope on Mount Graham in southern Arizona, astronomers found a spectrum of light reflected from lunar rock from Kamo’oalewa that closely matched NASA’s Apollo missions, indicating that it came from the moon. They initially compared the light to light reflected from other near-Earth asteroids, but they painted a void.
“I’ve looked into every near-Earth asteroid spectrum we’ve obtained, and none of them matched it,” said Ben Sharkey, a doctoral student at the University of Arizona and lead author of the research paper.
After the opportunity to observe Kamo`oalewa was missed in April 2020 due to the closure of the telescope during the coronavirus pandemic, the team has found the final piece of the puzzle in 2021.
“This spring, we got a much-needed follow-up note and said, ‘Wow, this is real,’” Sharkey said. “It’s easier to explain with the moon than with any other idea.”
Observations also show that Kamo`oalewa is in an unusual orbit, an unlikely orbit for an object drifting toward Earth from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The team isn’t sure how a piece of the moon is deflected in space, in part, because no other asteroids are known to originate from the moon. However, they narrowed the time frame for violent events to between 100,000 and 500 years ago.
Professor Stephen Lowery, an astronomer at the University of Kent, said: “While the team is not 100% conclusive, the team makes a strong argument that Kamuwaliwa may indeed have been part of the collision of such violent events. [as a lunar collision]. “
The results are published in the journal Communication of Earth Nature and Environment.
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