A team of asteroid dynamics researchers from Universidad Complutense de Madrid Ciudad Universitaria has discovered that a small asteroid, called 2024 PT5, will make one orbit around the Earth starting this month before departing back into the solar system. According to their calculations published in Research Notes of the AAS, the asteroid is expected to circle the Earth once, taking 53 days, from the end of September to mid-November.
This phenomenon is not new, as many asteroids have been known to fall into partial or full elliptical paths around the Earth before eventually being flung away. In fact, a similar event occurred in 2006 when an asteroid circled the Earth for approximately a year, and another one did so for several years before leaving in 2020.
The researchers used data on the asteroid’s size, speed, and path to calculate its trajectory over the next few months. They found that it will come close enough to the Earth to become bound by its gravity, if only for a couple of months. The asteroid is relatively small, measuring just 10 meters across, and likely originated from the Arjuna asteroid belt.
The researchers were able to estimate the asteroid’s origins by noting its path and comparing it to another object with a natural origin. They also ruled out the possibility that the asteroid is space junk due to its similar orbit. The discovery of this mini-moon provides valuable insights into Earth’s gravitational capture of asteroids, which can help scientists better understand the dynamics of our solar system.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2024-09-earth-mini-moon-months.html