The “mini moon” that’s been tagging along in Earth’s orbit recently is departing on Monday — leaving behind a scientific surprise: It may have once been part of our own actual moon.
Asteroid 2024 PT5, as it’s been dubbed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), is not actually orbiting Earth since it was never carried by Earth’s gravitational field. But it did hover about 2 million miles away, and will return in January some 1.1 million miles from Earth before its orbit of the sun takes it farther into the solar system.
After studying 2024 PT5 during its two-month sojourn, scientists learned its chemical composition is similar to lunar material obtained by the Russian Luna missions and the Apollo moon missions of NASA, Space.com reported.
“There are multiple lines of evidence suggesting that this asteroid may have a lunar origin,” Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, one of two astrophysicist brothers who discovered the space rock, and a professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, told Space.com. “Current research favors its rapid rotation with a rotational period under one hour, to be expected if 2024 PT5 is either a large boulder from the surface of the moon or a fragment from a larger object.”
AP
A flock of birds fly in front of the full moon over the city centre in Tallinn, Estonia, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
Scientists believe the moon itself was most likely formed when a massive cosmic collision 4 billion years ago ejected molten material from Earth, which cooled and condensed into the moon. Astronomers now suspect a good many of space rocks may have lunar origins as well.
NASA plans to observe 2024 PT5 via radar antenna at its next flyby in January, tracking it for a week using the Goldstone solar system radar antenna in California’s Mojave Desert, part of the Deep Space Network.
With News Wire Services
