A recent discovery shows that Earth might always have about six small moons called minimoons orbiting it for a short time. Minimoons are tiny rocks or asteroids caught temporarily by Earth’s gravity.
Research published in Icarus revealed that these small moons might sometimes be fragments from the moon. When something strikes the moon, bits break off and most travel around the sun, but some orbit Earth before escaping again.
Robert Jedicke, a Hawaiian scientist, compared this to a “square dance” where the small objects change partners often and leave the dance floor, only to come back later.
His team found that roughly 6.5 minimoons could be circling Earth at a time, each staying roughly nine months. However, it’s difficult to accurately count them because they’re tiny and quick.
These minimoons must be close to Earth to be seen with telescopes, but their speed makes this challenging. It’s amazing how modern telescopes can detect such small visitors from so far away.
One such minimoon, 2024-PT5, was spotted last year. Professor Carlos de la Fuente Marcos said it belongs to the Arjuna asteroid belt, sharing an orbit close to Earth’s path around the sun. It’s expected to return to Earth’s orbit only in 2055.
