A ‘mini-moon’ can be seen from Earth for the subsequent two months : NPR

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.

Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Go to our web site phrases of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for additional data.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This textual content is probably not in its ultimate kind and could also be up to date or revised sooner or later. Accuracy and availability could differ. The authoritative report of NPR’s programming is the audio report.