New Discovery: Asteroid 2023 FW13 Identified as Quasi-Moon Orbiting Earth

SPACE — An interesting discovery was made by astronomers this year. This year, astronomers discovered another celestial object circling Earth.

We know that the celestial object that surrounds the Earth is the Moon. However, it turns out there are two other objects circling the earth. The object is called a quasi moon or ‘false moon’. The two objects are the asteroid Kamo’oalewa or known as 2016 HO3 and the asteroid 2023 FW13.

Kamo’oalewa or 2016 HO3 was discovered in 2016. Meanwhile the asteroid 2023 FW13 was discovered in 2023.

The asteroid named 2023 FW13 is now considered a “quasi-moon”. This space rock orbits the sun along with Earth, with a very complicated trajectory that “traces half way to Mars and half way to Venus.” According to orbital calculations, the asteroid has been circling Earth since 100 BC and will remain there at least until 3700 AD.

Reporting from Space, this asteroid was first detected on March 28, 2023 by scientists using the Pan-STARRS survey telescope. This telescope took images of the night sky from the summit of Haleakala, a dormant volcano on the island of Maui, Hawaii.

The existence of this asteroid was later confirmed using the Canada-France-Hawaii Survey Telescope in Hawaii, as well as the Kitt Peak National Observatory and Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter in Arizona.

After passing all the checks, this discovery was officially announced on April 1, 2023.

This news caught the attention of Adrien Coffinet, a journalist at the French news website, Futura – Let’s inspire the future. By plotting the asteroid’s path using an orbital simulator developed by amateur astronomer Tony Dunn, Coffinet became the first person to know that 2023 FW13 circled the sun in the same time as Earth.

This asteroid also revolves around our planet. These details led him to conclude that this space rock was likely a quasi-moon or quasi-satellite of Earth or it could also be called a ‘false moon’.

2023 FW13 – which is estimated to be around 20 meters wide. Although the asteroid moves along with Earth, astronomers say that the sun has a more significant influence on this space rock.

The Earth only slightly disturbs the asteroid’s orbit, so the asteroid is always around the Earth.

Every year, this asteroid is within 15 million kilometers of Earth. For comparison, at its closest point in its orbit around Earth, the moon is about 360,000 km from Earth.

Astronomers think that the orbit of the asteroid 2023 FW13 is similar to the asteroid Kamo’oalewa or 2016 HO3. Kamo’oalewa never strayed too far from planet Earth.

Since the discovery of 2023 FW13, citizen astronomers searching through archived data have found observations of the asteroid dating back to 2012. Using all that data, they calculated the past and future orbit of this space rock.

2023-12-30 06:35:00
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