One Moon Two Moons Full Moon Blue Moon

Did you hear?  We have a visitor.

A few weeks ago, Earth was visited by an alien.  Alien object that is.  A mini-moon.

Sound familiar?

It appears that planet Earth has assumed babysitting duties for a minor space object that came too close to our world and chose to stay for a few weeks.  The traveling object fell into Earth’s orbit in September and will remain there until late November.  Rocky in disposition and roughly the size of a school bus, the object is an asteroid, yet scientists are calling it a “second moon.”

Known as “2024 PT5” (PT5), scientists call these objects mini-moons.  BT5 isn’t really a moon, it’s just an asteroid that’s the size of a bus.

PT5 was minding its own business, cruising through the solar system until September 29 when it entered Earth’s orbit around the sun.  Big mistake PT5, your path will never be the same!  The Earth’s gravitational pull will rocket PT5 around the Earth and, according to NASA, will whipsaw it back into space on November 25.

This graphic gives you a pretty good idea of how this slingshot will look.

So where did PT5 come from?  According to NASA, PT5 originated in the Arjuna asteroid belt.  Arjuna is a secondary asteroid belt that follows an orbit similar to Earth’s.

Even though PT5 is as big as a bus, celestially speaking it’s pretty tiny.  While the moon is an estimated 2,159 miles in diameter, PT5 is believed to be just 37 feet wide.  That means the moon is a whopping 300,000 times wider than PT5.

So, if you’re going to look for PT5 don’t bother.  It’s so small and dim that you couldn’t see it, even with a telescope.

Hmmmmmm, small and dim.  Sounds like some folks I know!