The world will experience rare, temporary astronomical phenomena. A second moon or minimoon circles the Earth for almost 2 months, starting from Sunday onwards.
The minimoon asteroid 2024 PT, about the size of a school bus and 10 meters long, passed Earth on Sunday. and it is temporarily held back by the Earth’s gravity to circle the Earth It has been almost 57 days.
In August, Carlos de la Fuente Marcos and Raul de la Fuente, astronomers from the Complutense University of Madrid, discovered asteroid 2024 PT5 for the first time using a telescope in South Africa. and published his findings in the Journal of the American Astronomical Society.
Richard Binzel, an astronomer from MIT, told the AP that this one-time minimoon happens more often than we think. The last time it was discovered was in 2020 and “this phenomenon can happen in casinos. But we rarely see them because they are so small and difficult to detect, but our star detectors are now at the point where we see these phenomena regularly.”
Carlos de la Fuente Marcos said via email that this minimoon cannot be seen with the naked eye or through amateur telescopes. But seeing the planet will require large research telescopes.
However, Bilzel, who was not involved in this research, said that it is not clear whether the space rock is an asteroid or an asteroid “fragment of the exploded moon”.
Neither the 2024 PT5 minimoon nor asteroid will orbit Earth, and on November 25, the minimoon will leave Earth. and travel alone through the universe Before then it is expected to return and approach Earth again in 2055, or another 31 years from now.
- Source: AP
