BREAKING : Earth will temporarily have a mini-moon for two months
On Sept. 29 an asteroid known as a ‘mini-moon’ is expected to make a single orbit around Earth and leave on November 25th
This temporary mini-moon is actually a small asteroid about 10 meters (33 feet) wide. Officially known as 2024 PT₅, the rock was only discovered last month, and calculations of its path indicate it will become a satellite of Earth on September 29.
It will be our little travel companion for 56.6 days, completing one full orbit of Earth in that time. After that, the rock will break free from our gravitational grasp on November 25, returning to its path around the Sun.
2024 PT₅ will then swing past for a final goodbye on 9 January 2025, coming within 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) of Earth before heading back out into the inky blackness.
It’s not farewell forever, however – 2024 PT₅ is predicted to come back on November 8, 2055. It won’t be quite as cozy next time though, flying by at a distance of 5.2 million kilometers (3.3 million miles).
This space rock was discovered on August 7 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), so it’s nice to know that mission is working as intended. That was one day before it made its closest pass to Earth, swinging by just 567,000 kilometers (352,300 miles) away, or roughly one and a half times the (normal) Moon’s distance.
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