Earth May Have a Temporary Mini-Moon

Earth is known for having a singular moon. Well, apparently we temporarily have a possible second moon. 2020 CD3 is an asteroid that was recently discovered to have entered Earth’s orbit roughly three years ago and will probably be leaving our orbit in the future. T

his discovery was made by Teddy Pruyne and Kacper Wierzchos, astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey. 2020 CD3 is not very big either coming in with a diameter between 1.9-3.5 meters. That’s not very big, but this discovery is still pretty cool.

This is only the second asteroid we know of that has entered Earth’s orbit with the first being 2006 RH120 which orbited the planet for 18 months. I’ll be a little sad when we find 2020 CD3 has decided to leave us, but for now it’s fun to imagine having a moon and a mini-moon.

BIG NEWS (thread 1/3). Earth has a new temporarily captured object/Possible mini-moon called 2020 CD3. On the night of Feb. 15, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Teddy Pruyne and I found a 20th magnitude object. Here are the discovery images. pic.twitter.com/zLkXyGAkZl

— Kacper Wierzchos (@WierzchosKacper) February 26, 2020

(2/3) The object has just been announced by the MPC and its orbit shows that it entered Earth's orbit some three years ago. Here is a diagram of the orbit created with the orbit simulator written by Tony Dunn: pic.twitter.com/2wsJGtexiO

— Kacper Wierzchos (@WierzchosKacper) February 26, 2020

(3/3) The object has a diameter between 1.9 - 3.5 m assuming a C-type asteroid albedo. But it's a big deal as out of ~ 1 million known asteroids, this is just the second asteroid known to orbit Earth (after 2006 RH120, which was also discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey).

— Kacper Wierzchos (@WierzchosKacper) February 26, 2020

Via: CNET