“A mini-moon is a small object orbiting another solar system body,” said Daniel Brown, an associate professor in astronomy at Nottingham Trent University.<\/p>\n
It can either be made of rock, which is an asteroid or a mixture of rock, dust and ice, which is a comet.<\/p>\n
“In either case, we have to think about these not orbiting around us forever but for a short amount of time,” said Dr Brown.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
2024 PT5 was first discovered in August last year, the day before it approached Earth at a distance of 353,200 miles (568,500km).<\/p>\n
It belongs to the Arjuna asteroid belt, a group of space rocks in the solar system that revolve around the Sun.<\/p>\n
Dr Brown said the mini-moon will orbit Earth for 57 days before eventually swinging out of the planet’s gravitational pull.<\/p>\n
“There is nothing explosive or dramatic happening to it for it to leave, it simply has too much energy to hang around us for too long,” he said.<\/p>\n
The mini-moon will be back<\/strong><\/p>\nAlthough a temporary visitor, Earth will not see the last of this mini-moon.<\/p>\n
Scientists predict it will re-enter our orbit in 2055.<\/p>\n
This is not the first time the Earth has had a mini-moon.<\/p>\n
Four years ago, scientists identified another mini-moon called 2020 CD3, which orbited the Earth for more than a year.<\/p>\n
Read more: New mini-moon discovered orbiting Earth – but it’s only temporary<\/strong><\/p>\nDr Brown said mini-moons are fairly common but “what tends to be less common is being able to observe them, as they are small, very faint and very fast-moving”.<\/p>\n
This year’s mini-moon will not be visible to the naked eye and can only be seen through telescopes.<\/p>\n
2024 PT5 is a near-Earth object – a group of space rocks that pass by Earth regularly.<\/p>\n
Astronomers track these objects in case they are a threat to Earth in the future but experts said it is unlikely 2024 PT5 will pose such a risk.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This post appeared first on sky.com<\/div>\n
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