We will see the new moon in two days. But you’ll need professional binoculars to see it.
It looks like a completely absurd report similar to those that appeared in the media on April 1. However, this is not an April Fool’s joke. The Earth will actually have two natural satellites instead of one for a while.
Small and far away
Draw our planet in the next two days catch A tiny asteroid that stays in Earth’s gravitational field for about two months. You can watch exactly when that happens for example here. It will only be possible to see it in the sky with the help of a professional telescope, among other things, because its surface reflects very little light. From the ground gravity should be released around November 25th.
Asteroid Named 2024 PT5 it is about 10 meters in diameter and comes from the asteroid belt called Arjuna. It is located close to the Sun, at an average distance of about 150 million kilometers from Earth. However, sometimes some of these asteroids come much closer to us, and then it could happen that the Earth catches them in its gravitational pulls for a while.
The 2024 PT5 will still be a long way off; it will move at a distance of 4.5 million kilometers from our planet. During the time it maintains the position of a natural satellite of the Earth, it will not even be able to rotate the Earth; its normal orbit is only deflected by Earth’s gravity.
Minor moon
This is a very common phenomenon, and scientists have already observed several small temporary moons. And we’re not even talking about the fact that there are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of space objects in our solar system that experts haven’t even discovered yet, probably because of how small they are.
And there is even asteroidywhich has even claimed the position of Earth’s natural satellite twice already. Among them, for example 2022 NX1. It already gave us a mini-moon in 1981 and again in 2022. After all, 2024 PT5 should look at us again; scientists have calculated their output for the year 2055.
Source: Space.com, JPL, Scientific American, News Sci
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2024-09-27 16:50:00
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