The earth is not so lucky as Saturn or Jupiter. It would be wonderful to look up at the sky and see dozens of moons dotting it, but the reality is that we have to make do with one. Beautiful, but only one. Every now and then, however, we are visited by an extra moon. These are not ordinary satellites, but something known as mini moons; but even so, his presence on our planet is fascinating.
An object is known as such that in its Traveling around the solar system It is attracted by the influence of the Earth’s orbit and remains there, revolving around our planet, just as our Moon has been doing for billions of years.
Mini-moons are usually asteroids. When an asteroid is headed toward Earth, two things can happen: it crosses the atmosphere and ends up colliding with the surface or bursting into flames, or it gravitational attraction of the earth to force it into orbit around our planet. That’s what’s likely to happen soon to 2024 PT5an asteroid discovered this summer by two scientists from the Complutense University of Madrid.
Doesn’t look like space junk
In many cases, space debris that can also end up in Earth orbit is confused with mini-moons. However, observations of 2024 PT5 suggest that it is most likely an asteroid. It does not appear to be space debris.
Short-lived mini-moons
Mini-moons often mingle with our Moon, but they usually don’t stay around for long. These scientists estimate that 2024 PT5 will only remain in Earth orbit for a short window of time. from September 29 to November 25. This is a little less than two months.
Then it will return to the Sun’s orbit and continue its journey through the solar system until a second encounter occurs. Perhaps in January 2025, it will orbit the Earth again for a season. Then it will leave, and we will have to wait a long time, until 2055to see it again.
Of course, it would not be strange if during this period the satellites that They orbit our planet temporarily.
The Wisdom of the Mini-Moons
Some minimoons stick around for visits much longer. Others, like 2024 PT5, only support short-term stays. But all could be very useful to scientists.
But in fact, these are asteroids in the surroundings of our planet. Many space missions have been sent to very distant moons to study their surfaces and composition. This is the case with Japan’s Hayabusa and Hayabusa2, which are responsible for studying asteroids. Itokawa and RyuguFor its part, NASA has missions such as OSIRIS-Rex aimed at exploring the asteroid. Bennu. All of them are very far from Earth. However, the mission is worth it, because knowing the composition of the asteroid can help us better understand the origin of the solar system and even our own planet.
For this reason, 2024 PT5 will not only be an interesting visitor. Perhaps it or any of the mini-moons could give scientists very interesting information without going so far. This is something that has been studied for a long time. At the moment, there is no mission underway, so we can only enjoy their presence. Of course, it is not bright enough to be clearly visible. amateur telescopes. We’ll only have images of professionals left. Not so bad.
Source: Hiper Textual
