Earth To Get A New Moon On Sept. 29

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Say hello to 2024 PT5, Earth's newest mini-moon. Expected to go into orbit of Earth for a couple of months from Sept. 29, 2024 PT5 is a near-Earth asteroid that's about to be captured by our planet for a short time before being released back into the solar system to orbit the sun.

2024 PT5 is a near-Earth asteroid and is 11 meters in diameter — about the same as two giraffes. It's known as an Arjuna asteroid and its existence has been revealed by a study published in the journal Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society .

Approaching Earth at close range and at a low relative velocity, it will go into orbit on Sept. 29 and depart on Nov. 25, when it returns to orbiting the sun. It will also come very close to Earth on Jan. 9, 2025, the report states.

Can we see the mini-moon? No. At magnitude 22, it's way too faint to see with the naked eye, or even powerful backyard telescopes. Only astronomers using large professional 30-inch telescopes will be able to see it.

It was discovered on Aug. 7 by South Africa's Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope, which also found the imminent naked-eye comet A3 .

Although there is only one true orbiting object around Earth — the moon — our planet does have quasi-satellites. One is Kamo'oalewa, which moves in sync with Earth in a 1-to-1 resonance, so appears to orbit Earth despite actually orbiting the sun.