Earth is about to capture a new “mini moon” (but it should not be a moon)

A new mini moon It is going to briefly join Earth’s orbit before being thrown back into space.

‘Minimoons’ are only a few feet long, and each tends to do a few months in orbit – before resuming their previous lives as asteroids.

But this particular mini moon Might be a little different – It is not a moon, as experts suggest, but man-made space debris.

In particular, it may have been a discarded part of a rocket launched in 1966, experts have suggested.

A small object called 2020 SO was discovered by Bon-StarRS1 on September 17 at the Halegala Laboratory. ScienceAlert Reports.

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It will be captured by the Earth this October and will move closer to Earth in December and February, Sky Reports.

It will continue to orbit our planet until May next year.

Alice Gorman of the University of Flinders, Australia, says many measurements of the 2020 SO suggest that it is not an asteroid. In an interview Scientific warning.

Further

Korman said: “The speed seems to be a big one. From what I can see, it’s moving very slowly. It reflects its initial speed. It’s basically a big payoff.”

These signs suggest that the object may be space debris.

Astronomer Paul Sodas suggested that the body of a Surveyor 2 Centaur rocket launched on September 20, 1966.

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Sodas says that the low velocity from the Earth is too low for even the objects emitted from the Moon, so it is unlikely to be a natural body.

Spectroscopy can show whether the material is painted, experts believe.

“It will be interesting to do some reflective spectroscopy, which will show how hard the surfaces are and how pitted and deformed they are from being blown away by dust and micro meteorites,” Korman said.

“This is human matter, which is in a different part of space. So, it would be interesting to compare the results you get from objects in low Earth orbit, which means matter is much denser.”