Earth will briefly have a second ‘mini moon’ this autumn
According to a study published this week, an asteroid roughly the length of a city bus will be captured by Earth’s gravitational pull and orbit our planet for about two months, becoming a “mini moon”.
It will spend time with Earth from 29 September until 25 November before returning to its home, an asteroid belt revolving around the sun.
“The object that is going to pay us a visit belongs to the Arjuna asteroid belt, a secondary asteroid belt made of space rocks that follow orbits very similar to that of Earth,” Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, a professor at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and the lead author of the research, told Space.com.
He explained that some of the asteroids in the Arjuna belt can approach relatively close to Earth, around 2.8m miles (4.5mkm) away.
If they’re also going relatively slowly for asteroids – at velocities of around 2,200mph (3,540km/h) – then their paths become more strongly affected by the Earth’s gravity than usual.
