The Earth will soon have a second satellite: how is this possible

To the question: “How many natural satellites does the Earth have?” – there is a quick answer: “One. This is the Moon." Surprisingly, this is not always the case. The Moon is our permanent natural satellite, but sometimes the planet has so-called temporary moons, or quasi-satellites. Very soon, one of them will stop by for a short visit: from October of this year to May next year, the correct answer to the above question will be: “Two.” What is a mini-Moon and how long will it remain a satellite of our planet, the publication said M24.

Photo: Shutterstock

Outer space is filled with a variety of celestial bodies: comets, asteroids and other objects periodically approach the Earth, their speeds are so high that the gravity of our planet does not have a significant effect on them. But sometimes “slow-moving cobblestones” approach us, which can linger for some time under the influence of the Earth’s gravity.

When such an event occurs, a three-body system is formed - the Earth, the Moon and an asteroid. According to the laws of celestial mechanics, such a system is very unstable, and pretty soon a light object will either fall onto one of the massive ones, or (with a much higher probability) will be thrown out of the system. This is exactly what happens every time: a “lost” asteroid hangs around for some time in the Earth-Moon system, and then goes into space.

Over the entire observation period, the existence of two such quasi-satellites was officially confirmed: 2006RH120 (arrived in 2006 and stayed in orbit for a year) and 2020CD3 (it spent two years in near-earth space - from 2018 to 2020). But in fact, there could be many more such temporary moons.

The thing is that these objects are very small and quite dark, which means they are almost never visible not only with the naked eye, but even through a telescope. Therefore, quasi-satellites are discovered by chance and, as a rule, already “on departure” - at the moment when the object leaves the Earth.

On the subject: Researchers find the moon is 'rusting': scientists are at a loss

That is why the discovery of a new temporary moon “on the way” was a big event for astronomers. The asteroid, named 2020SO by researchers, is approaching us and will become the third documented mini-Moon in Earth's orbit in October. The object does not pose a danger to us, although its dimensions are decent - from 6 to 14 meters in diameter. But, like all temporary moons, relative to the Earth it moves very slowly. The minimum distance at which 2020SO will approach the planet will be 50 kilometers. This will happen on December 000, 1. It is at this point that astronomers hope to study the temporary moon in as much detail as possible.

Meanwhile, 2020SO may actually turn out to be space debris. Some researchers believe that this could be a stray stage from the American Atlas-Centauri rocket, launched in 1966. She was supposed to send an unmanned vehicle to the Moon, but the flight then ended in an accident. The dimensions are approximately the same: the rocket stage was 12,68 meters long.

By the way, if you try to be as accurate as possible when counting the Earth’s satellites, it would be nice to take one more into account. Our planet has a so-called Trojan satellite - a small asteroid 2010TK7. Despite the inclusion of the word "small" in the classification, this object is a 300-meter rock flying around the Sun ahead of the Earth in a very similar orbit, but does not come closer than 20 million kilometers to us.

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