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Earth has a new ‘minimoon’, scientists announce

'BIG NEWS,' tweets astronomer involved in discovery

Wednesday 26 February 2020 21:13 GMT

Earth has acquired a "minimoon", scientists have said.

The object has temporarily been captured into Earth's orbit and is now flying beside us around the solar system, just like our more famous and much bigger moon, astronomers announced.

It has been designated "2020 CD3" by the Minor Planet Center, part of the International Astronomical Union, a body that catalogues and names objects discovered in space.

The object was found by astronomers from the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona, on 15 February. It was then observed repeatedly in the days that followed, allowing astronomers to learn more about the object.

That allowed the astronomers who found it to gather detailed images of the object as it moves around the Earth.

Examination of the object found that it appears to be between 6.2 and 11.5 feet in diameter. It is also shining with a particular brightness suggestive of carbon-rich asteroids, its discoverers said.

Though it was only newly found, the rock is thought to have been captured into Earth's orbit three years ago. That is according to orbital simulations carried out by astronomer Tony Dunn, using data from the astronomers who discovered 2020 CD3.

Official confirmation that the object existed and had been captured by Earth came on 25 February, when the Minor Planet Center designated it a "Temporarily Captured Object", and gave it its new name.

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

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1/10Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

Mystic Mountain, a pillar of gas and dust standing at three-light-years tall, bursting with jets of gas from fledgling stars buried within, was captured by Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope in February 2010

Nasa/ESA/STScI

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa's Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012

Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

Death of a star: This image from Nasa's Chandra X-ray telescope shows the supernova of Tycho, a star in our Milky Way galaxy

Nasa

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa's New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth

Getty

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust

Nasa

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth

Getty

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

Pluto, as pictured by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015

Nasa/APL/SwRI

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun

Nasa

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand

Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015

Nasa/Scott Kelly

Observations and calculations indicated the object "is temporarily bound to the Earth", the centre wrote in a circular sent out to astronomers.

"No evidence of perturbations due to solar radiation pressure is seen, and no link to a known artificial object has been found. Further observations and dynamical studies are strongly encouraged.

Despite the vast number of asteroids spotted and tracked by astronomers, 2020 CD3 is only the second known one ever to orbit Earth. The first, known as 2006 RH120, was spotted by scientists at the same institution.

In 2016, an asteroid split in half over Australia and lit up the sky. Astronomers suggested that may also have been a mini-moon – and it is possible that others are still orbiting around Earth, too small and dim to have yet been found by scientists.

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