{"id":204186,"date":"2024-09-24T14:29:34","date_gmt":"2024-09-25T00:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=204186"},"modified":"2024-09-27T16:48:17","modified_gmt":"2024-09-28T02:48:17","slug":"new-companion-asteroid-discovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2024\/09\/24\/new-companion-asteroid-discovered\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth\u2019s new ‘companion asteroid’ discovered by UH<\/abbr>-operated telescope"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"large
ATLAS<\/abbr> South Africa telescope at Sutherland Observing Station<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An asteroid that some are calling Earth\u2019s next “mini-moon” was discovered by a University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>-operated telescope.<\/p>\n

The 33-foot wide asteroid, called 2024 PT5<\/abbr>, was detected on August 7, by the NASA<\/abbr>-funded UH<\/abbr>\u2019s Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert Survey<\/a> (ATLAS<\/abbr>) telescope in Sutherland, South Africa, one of four global telescopes operated by UH<\/abbr>\u2019s ATLAS<\/abbr> system that search for dangerous asteroids that might impact the Earth.<\/p>\n

\"dots<\/p>\n

Earth’s gravitational pull will snag 2024 PT5<\/abbr> between September 29 and November 25, before it escapes the planet\u2019s orbit and continues its journey around the Sun. UH<\/abbr> experts describe the orbit of 2024 PT5<\/abbr> as “Earth-like,” meaning that the asteroid is nearly the same distance from the Sun as the Earth and spends all of its time along a path very similar to Earth\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n

Every few decades, the asteroid comes close enough to Earth to be temporarily “captured,” meaning that it will be loosely bound to Earth\u2019s gravity without being in orbit around the Earth. This capture episode will last for two months before the asteroid escapes the Earth\u2019s gravitational field until the year 2055, when the next capture is predicted to occur.<\/p>\n

While there is no official definition of a “mini-moon,” 2024 PT5<\/abbr> comes only within about one million miles from Earth, four times farther than the Moon, and is so tiny that it can only be seen with a powerful telescope. Even though its behavior is not very “moon-like,” it is the latest of a handful of objects that have been temporarily captured by the Earth\u2019s gravity. Such objects could someday present opportunities for sample retrieval or asteroid mining.<\/p>\n

“The discovery of 2024 PT5<\/abbr> by our ATLAS<\/abbr> telescopes is an important reminder that there are countless small objects orbiting the Sun, and some of them can temporarily become Earth\u2019s companions,” said Larry Denneau, UH<\/abbr> Institute for Astronomy<\/a> astronomer and ATLAS<\/abbr> co-principal investigator. “While this object poses no threat whatsoever to our planet, it showcases the invaluable work our team is doing to vigilantly monitor the skies and detect these objects before they make a close approach.”<\/p>\n

The unusual temporary capture aspect of 2024 PT5<\/abbr>\u2019s orbit was revealed after the object\u2019s discovery by a study published<\/a> in Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The four-telescope ATLAS<\/abbr> system is the first line of defense in surveying hazardous asteroids capable of monitoring the entire dark sky every 24 hours. Read this UH<\/abbr> News<\/em> story for more about ATLAS<\/abbr><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2024 PT5<\/abbr> is the latest of a handful of objects that are known to be temporarily captured by the Earth\u2019s gravity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[34,35,1363,174,9],"class_list":["post-204186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-astronomy","tag-institute-for-astronomy","tag-manoa-research","tag-space","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204186","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=204186"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204362,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204186\/revisions\/204362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}