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Earth to have new mini-moon for 2-mths
Earth to capture a '2nd moon' NASA says.

Earth will capture a miniature, "2nd moon" this week, according to NASA scientists. Wew moon is actually a tiny asteroid dubbed 2024 PT5.will start orbiting the planet in a horseshoe path & stick around for a little less than two mths be4 escaping Earth's gravitational pull then going back to its regular orbit around the sun.
"According to latest data available from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Horizons System, the temporary capture will start at 15:54 EDT (on Sunday) and will end at 11:43 EDT on November 25," mini-moon event expert & Universidad Complutense de Madrid professor Carlos de la Fuente Marcos told Space.com.

2024 PT5 is part of "the Arjuna asteroid belt, a secondary asteroid belt made of space rocks that follow orbits very similar to that of Earth at an average distance to the sun of about 93 million miles," Marcos said asteroid poses no threat to the planet, will travel about 2,200 miles per hour while maintaining a distance of around 2.8 million miles from Earth. By comparison average distance between Earth & the moon is 238,855 miles. Moon is also considerably larger, about 2,159 miles in diameter compared to the asteroid's slim 37-foot width.

Unlike the moon, 2024 PT5 won't be observable to the casual stargazer because of its size.
"The object is too small & dim for typical amateur telescopes and binoculars. However, the object is well within the brightness range of typical telescopes used by professional astronomers," Marcos said.

Dr. Jennifer Millard told BBC News.
https://phys.org/news/2024-09-earth-mini...onths.html

NASA's Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System first spotted the asteroid Aug. 7. This
Mini-moons have occurred in the past. The 2022 NX1 asteroid joined Earth's orbit in 1981 and 2022, according to BBC News.

"This story highlights just how busy our solar system  is, how much out there that we haven't discovered, be'cos this asteroid was only discovered this year," astronomer and podcaster
https://www.news18.com/viral/earths-seco...67427.html