Earth’s moon will soon get a companion as a large asteroid enters the orbit of the Earth.
According to Sky News, the temporary companion called 2024 PT5 and also dubbed ‘mini moon’ will most probably arrive on Sunday, September 29, 2024.
The mini-moon will accompany the regular moon for around two months. It will either be made of rock, which means an asteroid, or a mixture of dust, rock, and ice, which is a comet.
An associate professor in astronomy at Nottingham Trent University explained, “A mini moon is a small object orbiting another solar system body. In either case, we have to think about these not orbiting around us forever but for a short amount of time.”
Moreover, 2024 PT5 was first found in August 2023, a day before it approached Earth at a distance of 353,200 miles (568,500 km).
Dr. Brown described that the mini moon that will remain orbiting the Earth for 57 days will leave the planet swinging out due to the gravitational force of the planet.
He said, “There is nothing explosive or dramatic happening to it for it to leave, it simply has too much energy to hang around us for too long.”
The mini-moon, or 2024 PT5, belongs to a group of space rocks that revolved around the Sun, called the Arjuna asteroid belt.
