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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Earth is bidding farewell to an asteroid that has been acting as a “mini-satellite” for the past two months.
The harmless space rock will succumb to the sun’s strong gravitational pull and fall away on Monday. But it’s quickly approaching the point where you can easily visit in January.
NASA will then use a radar antenna to observe the 33-foot asteroid. This should give scientists a better understanding of the object known as 2024 PT5, which is very likely a rock blown off the moon by a crater-forming asteroid impact.
Although it’s not technically a moon (NASA emphasizes that it’s never been captured by Earth’s gravity and is fully in orbit), it’s an “interesting object” worth studying.
The astrophysicist brothers Raul de la Fuente Marcos of the Complutense University of Madrid, who identified the asteroid’s “mini-moon behavior,” have made hundreds of observations in collaboration with telescopes in the Canary Islands. It’s here.
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Currently more than 2 million miles away, this object is so small and faint that it can only be seen with a powerful telescope. It will pass nearly 1.1 million miles around Earth in January, then continue its orbit around the Sun at a safe distance until it approaches the solar system, not returning until 2055. This is almost five times the distance of the Moon.
The asteroid, first discovered in August, began scurrying around the planet in late September after being subject to Earth’s gravity and following a horseshoe-shaped orbit. By the time it returns next year, it will be traveling more than twice as fast as in September, Raul de la Fuente Marcos said.
NASA plans to track the asteroid for more than a week in January using the Goldstone Solar System radar antenna in California’s Mojave Desert, which is part of the Deep Space Network.
Current data suggests that this sun-orbiting asteroid will briefly and partially orbit Earth again during its visit in 2055.
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