The asteroid will orbit the Earth for about two months starting from Sept. 29.
Watch the 6abc Philadelphia 24/7 stream featuring Action News, AccuWeather and EntertainmentAn asteroid will come close enough to Earth to temporarily enter its orbit at the end of the month, a phenomenon dubbed as "mini-moon," according to astronomers.
Starting from Sept. 29, the asteroid, which was discovered by NASA on Aug. 7 from the Arjuna asteroid belt, will be orbiting the Earth for about two months until Nov. 25.Researchers at the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System - a NASA-funded program - detected the asteroid using an instrument in Sutherland, South Africa and named it as 2024 PT5.Speaking to ABC News, Astrophysics Professor Adam Frank from the University of Rochester explained the so-called mini-moon phenomenon.
"You're gonna need a telescope," he explained. "Even then it may be pretty difficult, given its distance. So it's more the idea of it than actually we're getting an extra moon."ccording to Frank, luckily, at this point, there is nothing to worry about the steroid coming into the Earth's orbit. "Because if something this size were to hit the Earth, you know, it would be an apocalypse of a biblical kind," he said. "So really here, what we've got is something that's about the moon's orbit or so it's about that kind of distance. So in no way is it going to get close enough to threaten us in any way.
In the study published this week, researchers said that the previous mini-moon events were short-lived and occurred in 1981 and in 2022.
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