Newly discovered asteroid may be a broken-off piece of the moon

A small space rock that lingered near Earth last year and was dubbed a temporary “mini-moon” may actually be a piece of the moon that broke off thousands of years ago. The celestial near-Earth object, known as 2024 PT5, is about 10 meters wide. However, researchers say it is not at risk of colliding with Earth now or in the next few decades due to its trajectory. After approaching Earth, 2024 PT5 is slowly moving away in its new, more distant orbit, reported by CNN.

The asteroid is a piece of the moon

But strangely enough, the object’s orbit around the sun is similar to Earth’s, suggesting that 2024 PT5 originated in our corner of the solar system. Astronomers first spotted the asteroid on August 7 using the NASA-funded Asteroid Near-Earth Alert System, or ATLAS, observatory in South Africa.

Despite predictions that the asteroid might become a temporary mini-moon orbiting Earth, the space rock has maintained a horseshoe-shaped orbit. It brought it closer to Earth, but it never actually entered orbit around our planet. But this asteroid is special because it is potentially a piece of the real moon, says Dr. Teddy Careta, a research scientist at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona.

Observing the asteroid

Careta and his colleagues observed the object with NASA’s Lowell Discovery Telescope and the Infrared Telescope Facility at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. As sunlight reflected off the surface of 2024 PT5, the team realized it looked a lot like rocks recovered from the surface of the Moon. But the main feature was that the rock was rich in silicate minerals – not  the kind you see on asteroids, but the kind that have been found in lunar rock samples.