Not a real "mini moon": asteroid 2024 PT₅ ends its visit to Earth

Two months after Earth was given a temporary companion, the "mini-moon" 2024 PT₅ is now saying goodbye again. The approximately 10-metre asteroid has never posed a threat to Earth; its exact trajectory was determined by astrophysicists Raúl and Carlos de la Fuente Marcos from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. The chunk was probably once carved out of the real moon and is now orbiting the sun with the Earth. Every few decades, it apparently takes a short break and briefly becomes a companion of the Earth. According to the two researchers, the next visit is scheduled for 2055, when it will once again become a temporary companion.

A visitor, not a mini moon

While the two Spanish astrophysicists described 2024 PT₅ as a "mini moon" in their work, the US space agency NASA contradicted this at least slightly weeks later. Because the small asteroid is never completely captured by the Earth's gravity, it is not technically another moon of our home planet. Nevertheless, the celestial body has received a lot of attention under this name and its recent departure is now being widely reported again. The fact that asteroids orbit the Earth only temporarily happens again and again, so the process is not unusual. The orbit of 2024 PT₅ around the Earth resembles a horseshoe.

However, before 2024 PT₅ moves away from the Earth completely, it will come particularly close to it again in January. While it has been nine times as far away from Earth as the moon since September, the distance will then be five times that of the moon. NASA wants to observe it during this approach before its final departure. Both the de la Fuente Marcos brothers and the US space agency point out that it is not completely certain that the object is not an old rocket or other space debris. However, precise analyses of the trajectory would indicate that it is probably a natural object.

Read also

Kamoʻoalewa: Erdnaher Asteroid und Quasisatellit stammt womöglich vom Mond

(mho)