{"id":112375,"date":"2020-03-04T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T23:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=112375"},"modified":"2020-03-13T12:38:23","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T22:38:23","slug":"pruyne-mini-moon-discovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/03\/04\/pruyne-mini-moon-discovery\/","title":{"rendered":"Mini-moon discovery made by <abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> Hilo grad"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><figure id=\"attachment_112371\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-112371\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/hilo-astronomy-mini-moon.jpg\" alt=\"potential mini moon\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"size-full wp-image-112371\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/hilo-astronomy-mini-moon.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/hilo-astronomy-mini-moon-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/hilo-astronomy-mini-moon-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-112371\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Astronomers take in glimpse of Pruyne\u2019s discovery. Image of potential mini-moon as seen from the Gemini telescope on Maunakea. (Photo credit: The International Gemini Observatory \/ <abbr>NSF<\/abbr>\u2019s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory \/ <abbr>AURA<\/abbr> \/ G. Fedorets)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/hilo.hawaii.edu\/\">University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at Hilo<\/a> graduate has attracted international attention after discovering what could be a mini-moon close to Earth. <strong>Teddy Pruyne<\/strong> and fellow astronomer Kacper Wierzchos spotted the car-sized asteroid on February 15, at the Catalina Sky Survey in Tucson, <abbr title=\"Arizona\">Ariz<\/abbr>. Its now being called 2020 <abbr>CD3<\/abbr>, and if its proposed designation holds up, it will only be the second time in history an asteroid of its kind has been found. The extraordinary discovery garnered thousands of retweets on Twitter.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">BIG NEWS (thread 1\/3). Earth has a new temporarily captured object\/Possible mini-moon called 2020 CD3. On the night of Feb. 15, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Teddy Pruyne and I found a 20th magnitude object. Here are the discovery images. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/zLkXyGAkZl\">pic.twitter.com\/zLkXyGAkZl<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Kacper Wierzchos (@WierzchosKacper) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WierzchosKacper\/status\/1232460436634656769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 26, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It\u2019s a big deal as out of &#8764;1 million known asteroids, this is just the second asteroid known to orbit Earth,&ldquo; Wierzchos explained in a follow-up tweet. The discovery turned heads because it didn\u2019t burn up or get ejected as most asteroids do when they come close to Earth.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Related <em><abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> Hilo Stories<\/em> story:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/hilo.hawaii.edu\/chancellor\/stories\/2020\/01\/30\/alumnus-discovers-second-closest-object\/\"><abbr>UH<\/abbr> Hilo astronomy alumnus discovers second closest object on record to graze by Earth<\/a>, January 30, 2020<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The object was officially announced by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.minorplanetcenter.net\/\">International Astronomical Union\u2019s Minor Planet Center<\/a>, an organization in charge of confirming observations in the Solar System. The orbit shows that it entered Earth\u2019s orbit about three years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Pruyne earned a bachelor of science in astronomy from <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Hilo in 2018. He is a research specialist at Catalina Sky Survey and surveys the night sky for objects classified as Near Earth Objects.<\/p>\n<p>The potential mini-moon discovery is not the first time Pruyne has made news with his observations. On October 31, 2019, he discovered the second closest object on record to graze by Earth, but not strike the planet. The asteroid, now designated 2019 <abbr>UN13<\/abbr>, was identified while analyzing four images taken within the constellation Aries.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hilo.hawaii.edu\/chancellor\/stories\/2020\/02\/26\/pruyne-discovers-mini-moon\/\">For more go to <em><abbr>UH<\/abbr> Hilo Stories<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8212;By Susan Enright<\/em><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_112369\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-112369\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/hilo-astronomy-pruyne.jpg\" alt=\"Teddy Pruyne and catalina sky survey\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"size-full wp-image-112369\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/hilo-astronomy-pruyne.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/hilo-astronomy-pruyne-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/hilo-astronomy-pruyne-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-112369\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pruyne\u2019s nights are spent at Catalina Sky Survey searching for Near Earth Objects.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Hilo astronomy graduate has made another extraordinary discovery from his perch at a <abbr>NASA<\/abbr>-funded observatory in Arizona.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[90,679,34,14,907],"class_list":["post-112375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-alumni","tag-alumni-recognition","tag-astronomy","tag-uh-hilo","tag-uh-hilo-stories","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112375"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114091,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112375\/revisions\/114091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}