Asteroid flies along

Earth gets a second companion for a few weeks

An asteroid accompanying the Earth for eight weeks. (symbolic image)(Bild: dimazel, Krone KREATIV)

The Earth will soon have a second companion alongside the moon. According to US astrophysicists, the asteroid known as "2024 PT5" will orbit our planet in a horseshoe shape from September 29 to November 25 before flying on into space.

"This is "pretty cool", astrophysicist Federica Spoto from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics told the New York Times.

Not visible to the naked eye
However, astro-fans cannot hope for two clearly visible moons in the night sky: The asteroid is too small to be seen with the naked eye. Most asteroids whiz by more or less far away from Earth; very rarely does one enter our planet's atmosphere or even make a crater.

"2024 PT5" has a different fate: it is captured by the Earth's gravity and accompanies the planet for around eight weeks, as researchers report in the "Research Notes" of the American Astronomical Society.

The asteroid was detected with ground telescopes at the beginning of August. The lump is only around ten meters in size. "The discovery reminds us that there is a fairly busy highway around the Earth," said Spoto.

Asteroid could be a fragment of the moon
The fact that the asteroid is on a two-month spin around the Earth is topped off by a bizarre detail: the boulder is probably a piece of ejected material from an impact on the moon, it was said. The temporary miniature moon could therefore be a fragment of the actual moon.

It is probably a so-called Arjuna asteroid with an Earth-like orbit around the sun, explain Carlos de la Fuente Marcos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid in the "Research Notes". It is unlikely that it is an artificial object such as space debris due to its trajectory.

In the coming months, those who dream of mining raw materials in space may be looking up at the sky with particular longing: "Every time there's talk of asteroid mining, it's about mini-moons," Spoto told the New York Times. A metal-rich chunk of rock orbiting the Earth would therefore be a nice target for prospectors.