A small celestial object called Kamo’oalewa, previously imagined to be a “garden-variety near-Earth asteroid,” may have instead come from the Moon, scientists say
Astronomers discovered 469219 Kamo'oalewa, a small rock orbiting the Sun, in April 2016. Now they believe that instead of being a meteor, it may have been a broken off piece of the Moon.on November 11, 2021, the rock, which is about 41 metres in diameter, gives off a spectrum close to the Moon’s: “This spectrum is indicative of a silicate-based composition, but with reddening beyond what is typically seen amongst asteroids in the inner solar system.
Kamo’oalewa is classified as a quasi-satellite – “a subcategory of near-Earth asteroids that orbit the Sun but remain relatively close to Earth. Little is known about these objects because they are faint and difficult to observe,” the authors say in the news release.“Originally, scientists thought Kamo'oalewa, which was discovered in 2016, was an asteroid captured by Earth's gravity at some point in the past, but this new data suggests otherwise.
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