In a rare celestial event, a ‘mini-moon’ will revolve around our planet Earth for two months. An asteroid will be captured by Earth’s gravity and will orbit our planet from September 29 to November 25 this year.
“Near-Earth objects (NEOs) that follow horseshoe paths, and approach our planet at close range and low relative velocity, may undergo mini-moon events in which their geocentric energy becomes negative for hours, days or months, but without completing one revolution around Earth while bound,” the report read.
The asteroid will break free from Earth’s gravitational pull and return to orbiting the sun after November 25, 2024.
Earth can regularly capture asteroids from the Near-Earth Object (NEO) population and pull them into orbit, making them mini moons. These asteroids sometimes do not complete one revolution and drop out of the orbit.
The newly discovered 2024 PT5 resembles the temporary flyby 2022NX1, which revolved around the Earth in 1981 and 2022 without completing an orbit and will return in 2051. But there are asteroids which complete one revolution and more, like the Asteroid 2006 RH120 revolved around the earth for a year from 2006 July to 2007 July.
The report confirmed that 2024 PT5 is not an artificial object as its “short-term dynamical evolution closely resembles that of 2022 NX1,” a confirmed natural object. Sometimes, Earth pulls space junk or Space debris into its orbit, which revolves around earth.
