According to research specialists at the Catalina Sky Survey, the Earth now has a new moon!
Rather than calling it a moon, it would be more appropriate to call this a mini-moon.
Kacper Wierzchos and Theodore Pruyne, researcher specialists for the Catalina Sky Survey – a NASA-funded project at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tuscon, Arizona, have discovered that the Earth has captured a tiny asteroid and pulled it into orbit.
Called 2020 CD3, this asteroid is a temporary mini-moon that is spinning around the Earth. However, it will drop out of the orbit of the Earth by April 2020 and return to its orbit around the sun.
Its diameter is likely between 6.2 and 11.4 feet.
BIG NEWS (thread 1/3). Earth has a new temporarily captured object/Possible mini-moon called 2020 CD3. On the night of Feb. 15, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Teddy Pruyne and I found a 20th magnitude object. Here are the discovery images. pic.twitter.com/zLkXyGAkZl
— Kacper Wierzchos (@WierzchosKacper) February 26, 2020
(2/3) The object has just been announced by the MPC and its orbit shows that it entered Earth’s orbit some three years ago. Here is a diagram of the orbit created with the orbit simulator written by Tony Dunn: pic.twitter.com/2wsJGtexiO
— Kacper Wierzchos (@WierzchosKacper) February 26, 2020
(3/3) The object has a diameter between 1.9 – 3.5 m assuming a C-type asteroid albedo. But it’s a big deal as out of ~ 1 million known asteroids, this is just the second asteroid known to orbit Earth (after 2006 RH120, which was also discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey).
— Kacper Wierzchos (@WierzchosKacper) February 26, 2020
According to various astronomers, these mini-moons do orbit the Earth frequently – the Earth pulls them into its orbit. In fact, they believe that there is at least one mini-moon orbiting the Earth at any given point. However, these moons are seldom discovered because of their small size.
The first ever known asteroid to orbit the Earth was 2006 RH120, a 3-foot-wide asteroid that orbited the Earth for 18 months in 2006 and 2007.
Isn’t this pretty intriguing? Do let us know your views in the comments section below.
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