If you thought the Earth only had one moon, think again. Researchers have revealed that our planet may actually have an entire collection orbiting us at any given time.
A new study has found that Earth has at least six ‘minimoons’ in orbit on a regular basis, with most of them being smaller pieces of the actual moon we see in the sky each night.
A team from the US, Italy, Germany, Finland, and Sweden said these tiny satellites are generally around six feet in diameter and were formed by asteroids impacting on the moon’s surface.
The collisions essentially kick up a bunch of dust and moon debris, with some of it being large enough to float away and get pulled into the Earth’s gravitational field.
The study suggested that these broken moon pieces, known as ‘lunar ejecta,’ can move into somewhat stable orbits, staying near Earth for years.
Minimoons typically stay in Earth’s orbit only for a short time before escaping or, in rare cases, hitting our planet or the moon.
Most of the time, these temporarily bound objects (TBOs) break away from Earth and are pulled into the sun’s gravity, where they’ll remain indefinitely, while new chunks of the moon are broken off to replace them.
Robert Jedicke, a researcher at the University of Hawaii, said: It’s ‘kind of like a square dance, where partners change regularly and sometimes leave the dance floor for a while.’
2024 PT5 entered Earth’s orbit as a ‘minimoon’ from September 29 through November 25, 2024 (Stock Image)
‘Given that 18 percent of TBOs can also be classified as minimoons, our nominal results suggest that there should be about 6.5 minimoons larger than 1 m diameter in the [Earth-Moon system] at any time,’ the researchers wrote in their new report.
The new study could upend the belief among scientists that these minimoons which quietly circle Earth all come from the solar system’s asteroid belt.
A 2018 study suggested most TBOs come from this distant region which sits between Mars and Jupiter.
However, the new findings published in Icarus looked at two recently discovered minimoons, Kamo’oalewa and 2024 PT5, which both appear to have telltale signs of being moon fragments.
Specifically, Kamo’oalewa, discovered in 2016 by the Pan-STARRS1 telescope in Hawaii, was found to reflect light in a way that closely matches the moon’s surface composition.
The large minimoon, which measures between 131 to 328 feet in diameter, also has the same composition of lunar rocks, rich in silicates.
This greatly differs from the typical asteroid, which often contains different minerals and metals than those found on the moon.
Jedicke told Space.com that 2024 PT5, which was discovered entering Earth’s orbit on August 7, 2024, has exhibited the same lunar-like characteristics.
Astronomers created a simulation of what they believed 2024 PT5, a so-called minimoon, looked like in space
Last year, 2024 PT5 was dubbed Earth’s temporary ‘second moon’ because of its size and lingering presence so close to our planet.
Astronomers collected data on the supposed asteroid as it circled Earth, which led astronomers to suggest that it may have been a chunk of our moon instead.
The leading theory of lunar formation is called the ‘giant impact hypothesis,’ which theorizes that the moon is actually an enormous, orbiting hunk of Earth.
According to this theory, our planet collided with a Mars-sized planet roughly four billion years ago, and this triggered an explosion of material from Earth that shot into space and eventually condensed to form the moon.
If the giant impact hypothesis and the analysis of 2024 PT5’s origin are correct, that would mean our true moon is the parent of this minimoon, and Earth is its grandparent.
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