Earth is going to gain a new friend for some time, thanks to the arrival of yet another “mini-moon” in its vicinity. In particular, the asteroid 2024 PT5 will be momentarily captured by Earth’s gravitational influence from September 29 to November 25, 2024. Very tiny, about 33 feet (10 meters) across, this asteroid will be captured by earth’s gravity for 56 days before returning to its respective orbit around the solar system.
2024 PT5 was located on August 7, 2024, by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System ATLAS located in South Africa. It is one of the group of near-Earth objects, some called Arjunas that revolve in a way close to that of the earth’s orbit. Even though its speed is not high and it is not far away, earth’s gravitational force will have a short-term effect on the object’s movement. Nevertheless, the asteroid will only make a partial orbit around the earth, which is why it is classified as a “temporarily captured flyby.”
Although this event is quite unusual, it is not entirely new to this world. The same events have previously taken place such as the asteroid 2022 NX1, which orbited the earth two times, one in 1981 and the next in 2022. However, as with any of these mini-moons, 2024 PT5 will not be observed with the bare eye owing to its diminutive dimensions and lack of light, even strong telescopes will find it hard to get a picture of its appearance.
After 2024 PT5 finishes the quick release around the planet, it shall shoot into space, and the Date of next close approach has been earmarked in the year 2055. It is not going to be a menace to the planet. This mini-moon does serve an interesting approach as the scientists try to look at the effect of near-earth objects and earth’s gravity.
It is possible for our planet to take and hold stray NEOs in a temporary capture that acts as a mini-moon. A mini-moon has been predicted that next to 2022 NX1 such conditions will be encountered by the asteroid, an Apollo type NEO, 2024 PT5. Such NEOs like 2024 PT5 are under the jurisdiction of NASA and are being watched, as any space object with 120 million miles of proximity to the Earth is termed as an NEO by NASA. These objects’ proximity of up to 4.7 million miles is classified as “potentially hazardous” areas.
It tracks about 28000 asteroids including even small ones like 2024 PT5 in which the ATLAS systems of NASA consist of four telescopes and performs this task of scanning the entire system in every twenty-four hours. This temporary capture provides scientists with the opportunity to investigate the way the gravity of Earth acts on small NEOs like 2024 PT5 and enrich their understanding of such space objects.
