Earth has acquired a temporary moon. It has been tagging along with us for about 60 years and will continue to tag along until 2083. It is a small asteroid going by the name 2025 PN7.
Officially discovered
by the University of Hawaii and confirmed this past week, it is what’s known as
a “quasi-moon”—a rare celestial companion that travels almost exactly in sync
with Earth. It’s not a true moon because it doesn’t orbit around the Earth.
Right now, it is orbiting the sun, keeping pace with us so that it appears to
shadow our planet.
2025 PN7 is estimated
to be 18 to 36 meters wide, about the height of a small building, which is tiny
by cosmic standards. That may be why it took so long to notice it.
Our real moon is held
tight by gravity, but this asteroid isn’t bound to us. Think of it as a
friendly jogger matching our stride on the same track—close enough to notice
but never touching.
After 2083—if its
current orbit holds that long—it will drift away into open space. At its
closest approach to us, it gets within 4 million kilometers, which is roughly
ten times the distance between Earth and the moon. At its most distant, it can
swing out to 17 million kilometers. That changing distance is because of the
competing gravity of the sun and various planets.
So far, astronomers
have confirmed only eight quasi-moons. Each of them is a small but valuable
clue in understanding how asteroids move and how Earth’s gravity shapes the
space around us. These objects are more than curiosities. They help refine
orbital models, improve predictions for near-Earth asteroids, and could serve
as testing grounds for future missions. After all, they’re close, relatively
stable, and reachable without traveling too far from home.
2025 PN7 will never
outshine our real moon. But it’s there and worth knowing about.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/nasa-confirms-earth-now-has-two-moons-until-2083/ar-AA1OQpRt?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=68f6da61133a4c1f869a4eb40f801f5c&ei=63
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