On September 29th, an asteroid will temporarily drift into Earth’s orbit and become a “second moon.” Asteroid 2024 PT5 will become a temporary mini moon for about two months. This mini-moon will be in Earth’s orbit from September 29th to November 25th.
This phenomenon is happening because Asteroid 2024 PT5 belongs to a group of asteroids called the Arjuna asteroids, which have an orbit very similar to Earth. “This asteroid is what we call a trans-Neptunium object, meaning it did not come from our asteroid belt,” Geo-systems teacher Mr. Woods said.
This asteroid will come close to Earth at a slow speed and Earth’s gravity will pull PT5 into our atmosphere, which will cause PT5 to temporarily orbit around us. PT5 will not make a full orbit around, rather a horseshoe shape, then Earth’s gravity will send it back into space. This will give scientists a short chance to study PT5. After PT5’s brief visit, it will head back to the Arjuna asteroid belt, and won’t return to Earth until 2055.
PT5 was first spotted on August 7th by NASA’s Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). The asteroid is believed to be around 37 feet in diameter, but more data is needed to confirm the size. PT5 could potentially be anywhere from 16-38 feet across, which means it is potentially larger than the asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia. Luckily, there is no risk of PT5 colliding with Earth during this event, or even in the near future. “[PT5] will be coming at a very shallow angle, coasting through our atmosphere for a long time, rather than an object going straight at the Earth,” said Mr. Woods.
The asteroid will orbit around 2.6 million miles away, which is about ten times between Earth and the Moon.
This is a very common event, in fact, this happens frequently, but the asteroids don’t typically hang around this long which makes this time different. There have been two other notable occurrences of the mini-moons, one in 1981 and the other in 2022.
Freshman Olivia Suthar said, “I don’t think [PT5] will affect us much, but it will be cool either way.”
If you are hoping to see this mini-moon, good luck. The lead author of the study said the mini-moon will not be visible with the naked eye, or even an amateur telescope. You will need a professional telescope to see PT5.
