Get ready for a cosmic surprise this fall: Earth will soon gain another moon, scientists say.
The gravitational force of our planet will attract a small asteroid, which will temporarily become a "little moon".
This visit from space should begin on September 29 and will last for several months, until the celestial body leaves the Earth's gravitational field.
Earth's second moon will unfortunately be too small and dim to see, except for those with professional telescopes.
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The space body was first spotted on August 7 by the US National Space Agency's (NASA) Asteroid Tracking System.
Scientists have studied its path of movement and have found out published in the journal Research Records of the American Astronomical Society.
The asteroid is named 2024 PT5 and originates from the Adjuna asteroid belt, with rocks that follow Earth-like orbits.
Sometimes such asteroids come relatively close to our planet, so they are about 4,5 million kilometers away.
If a celestial body like 2024 PT5 is moving at a relatively slow speed of 3.540 kilometers per hour, the Earth's gravitational field can exert a large influence on it, enough to temporarily keep it in that zone, researchers say.
That small asteroid will spend two months in Earth's orbit.
It is expected to enter on September 29 and exit on November 25, according to Jennifer Millard, astronomer and author of the Amazing Astronomy podcast (Awesome Astronomy), the BBC.
"It will not make a complete circle around our planet, but its orbit will change, the Earth will bend it slightly and then it will continue on its own path," explains Millard.
This asteroid is about 10 meters long, which is much smaller compared to the Moon, whose diameter is about 3.474 kilometers.
Due to its small size and the fact that it is made of dark rocks, 2024 PT5 will not be visible from Earth, even if we use binoculars or home telescopes.
"Professional telescopes will be able to pick it up, so I expect we'll see many wonderful photographs of this tiny dot moving at high speed past the stars," says Millard.
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Small bodies similar to the Moon have been recorded before, and it is believed that even more of them have passed by the Earth undetected.
Some returned more than once, and an example of this is the asteroid 2022 NX1, which did so in 1981 and 2022.
Asteroid 2024 PT5 is estimated to return to Earth's orbit in 2055.
"This story shows how many celestial bodies there are in our solar system and how many we haven't discovered yet, because this asteroid was observed for the first time this year.
"There are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of objects that we haven't discovered, so I think this shows us how important it is to keep watching the sky to find new ones," says scientist Millard.
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