Earth’s gravity has disrupted an asteroid named 2024 P-T-5. The house rock and the Earth are actually in a fleeting gravitational dance.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Earth has a brand new customer in house. It is an asteroid named 2024 PT5.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Catchy. Because the asteroid was whizzing by on its path across the solar, the Earth’s gravity disrupted it, and the house rock and the Earth are actually in a fleeting gravitational dance.
SUMMERS: Scientists noticed the house rock final month utilizing a telescope in South Africa. That telescope is a part of the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Final Alert System. And whereas that title sounds fairly dire, there is no want to fret. This asteroid is just not on a collision course with Earth.
SHAPIRO: Scripting this month within the journal Analysis Notes of the American Astronomical Society, scientists estimate the asteroid is 33 ft lengthy – in regards to the measurement of a bus. And sorry, yard astronomers – it’s going to be too small and dim to see with beginner telescopes.
SUMMERS: And whereas the house rock has picked up the nickname of a mini moon, tracing a brief arc across the Earth, there’s some disagreement whether or not it actually lives as much as that title as a result of it will not make a full orbit round our planet earlier than departing once more within the coming months to proceed its journey across the solar.
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