Prepare to witness a rare cosmic event as Earth welcomes a miniature ‘second moon’ this weekend, according to NASA. Discover the fascinating details about this temporary celestial companion and its significance in our dynamic solar system.
Mini Moon Enters the Building!
It was revealed Earth will lock on to a mysterious small asteroid hurtling through the near-Earth space and hold it as a ‘new moon’ until early Sunday morning. This visitor from deep space is actually an Arjuna asteroid, a lesser-known type of asteroids that all act like cosmic twins to the rocks in Earth’s part of space.
Per the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Horizons System, capture of the mini-moon will start on Sunday at 12:54 CDT and go through until November 25th at 8:43CDT. Asteroid Hunter has a miss distance of about 2.8 million miles, meaning during this time the space rock will circle Earth in an unusual horseshoe path that sees it closely whip by our planer at roughly just under 12 times the average distance between Earth and its natural satellite, the Moon.
Celestial Companion Distant Visitor
Although that might be a bit of a stretch as far as calling it a ‘second moon,’ it is fundamentally very different from the one we already know. 2024 PT5 has a width of just 37 feet, a tiny sliver of the Moon’s massive 2,159-mile diameter. Because of this tiny size, it will not be visible to the naked eye or even most amateur telescopes and binoculars.
Even though the asteroid is small, it will still be in a brightness range for professional astronomers to grab their closest look at this space visitor. This encounter could yield important information on what these Arjuna asteroids (a group of objects with orbits much like Earth’s) are made of, where they came from and how they behave.
Curiously, this is not the first mini-moon to fall into Earth’s gravitational pull; For some time, the 2022 NX1 has slipped into a temporary earth companion in our solar system, underlining again just how fluid and constantly evolving our celestial neighborhood actually is.
Conclusion
The key takeaway is that this transient ‘second moon’ underlines the abundance of undetected objects which are out there lingering our solar system and the necessity of continuing with astronomical observations. As we make room for our littlest giant celestial acquaintance, bolts from the blue and the coherences of the constantly vigilant cosmic forces that encircle our planet remind us of just how precious in rarity shared experiences with these events are.
