The minimon of the Earth can be a chip of the old block: a new investigation suggests that 2024 PT5, a small and rocky body called “Minimón” during its discovery last year, may have been fly from the moon during a giant impact a long time ago, which makes it the second known sample that travels near the orbit of the earth.
The discovery hints a hidden population of lunar fragments that travel near Earth.
“If there were only one object, that would be interesting but an atypical case,” said Teddy Kaeta, a planetary scientist at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, in March at the 56th Annual Conference of Lunar and Planetary Sciences in Woodlands, Texas. “If there are two, we are quite sure that it is a population.”
A new son of evidence
The earth travels through and with a cloud of rubble while the planet makes clues around the sun. Part of that material is satellites of human manufacture and space garbage. Another material is the rocky debris that remain collisions in the early solar system. These objects close to Earth (NEO) can be a group, so they are traced to make sure they are not a threat to our planet.
Related: How many threatening asteroids are there? It is complicated.
In August 2024, astronomers in South Africa identified a new rock, known as 2024 PT5, which was traveling near Earth. 2024 PT5 moved slowly, with a relative speed of only 4.5 mph (2 meters per second), which makes it a strong objective for the survey of almost the accessible earth of the mission (hands). Only nine other asteroids have been traveling so slowly in their closest approach.
Kaeta, together with the principal researcher, Nick Moskovitz, also in Lowell, has been intrigued by the idea of finding lunar rocks in space from just after the first fragment of this type was identified in 2021. Hands is designed to search and characterize the visit with a spacecraft. According to Kaeta, they meerate the survey was ideal to look at the unleashed lunar. Within a week of the 2024 PT5 discovery, they had converted the discovery lowell telescope into the space of space rock.
After studying 2024 PT5 in visible and close infrared data, they concluded that it was an ordinary asteroid. Its composition was similar to that of the rocks that brought to the earth the duration of the Apollo program, as well as a returned by Moon 24 of the Soviet Union. The researchers also found that 2024 PT5 was small – 26 to 39 feet (8 to 12 meters) diameter.
Kaeta and her colleagues suspect that 2024 PT5 was excavated when something crashed into the moon. When studying the asteroid composition, they hope to link the material to its source and perhaps only identify its main crater.
Cráter events are one of the most important processes that shape planetary spinning or liquid planetary bodies to tow them. But the impacts can be affected by a variety of variables, and understanding them can be a challenge. Combining debris with your crater can provide another way to understand what happens when two bodies collide. That is what makes you identify lunar rocks in space is so intriguing.
“It’s like realizing that a crime scene has a totally new son of evidence that you didn’t know before,” Kareta told Space.com by email. “It may not help it solve the crime immediately, but consult the importance of the task, the new details to compare are always welcome.”
Changing lanes
The earth’s moon system material must be some of the easiest to fall into orbit near Earth. After an impactor collides with the moon, everything but the fastest movement material thrown into space should continue traveling near our system. Althegh 2024 PT5 was called a minimon in September, it only fell briefly in line with the planet.
Kareta compared it with two cars on the road. The earth is overwhelming in its own lane, while 2024 PT5 spread along the inner road, closer to the sun. In 2024, the small piece of rock changed the lane, falling on the road from the earth to approximately the same speed. At the end of September, he had moved on, changing out. The land left it behind, but on the solar racing track, the couple must be parallel again in 2055, scientists estimate.
2024 PT5 is the second lunar fragment identified by researchers. Another small rock, Kamo’oalewa, was tracked to the moon in 2021, five years after its discovery. That could insinuate a new population, hidden in sight.
Both objects travel in orbits similar to the earth, but they don’t have much more in common. Kamo’oalewa is larger and seems to have mistreated the legs by cosmic rays, solar radiation and other processes longer than 2024 PT5. That could suggest that he has a leg in space longer, Kaeta said.
His orbits are also a bit different. Kamo’oalewas orbit quasi-satellite keeps him in the neighborhood of the earth for several consecutive orbits, even thought he is not turning around the planet. Unlike 2024 PT5, which changes the lane, Kamo’oalewa is more like a car that remains in a lane, moving at the same speed.
Researchers are trying to match Kamo’oalewa with a crater. A study recently suggested that it could come from a smashup that Giordano Bruno Crater created, an impact basin of 14 miles wide (22 km) on the other side of the moon.
Kaeta expects them to identify more. While a single sample is a rarity, two could be part of a crowd. The suspects that some asteroids who have a leg identified as unusual can be disguised lunar rocks.
When the neo orbits are calculated, their source region is estimated based on their current trips. If some objects have poorly classified and their sources are incorrect, that could mean that other aspects of their orbits are misunderstood. There could increase the long -term possibilities that a land be beaten by an asteroid, Kaeta said that “it is almost surely not” the case “, but we will have to prove it.”
For now, Kaeta and her crenemeagues continued to use hands to search for other potential lunar fragments. He hopes that the duplicate population will convince other researchers that they also take a closer look. Next large -scale surveys such as the Vera Rubin Observatory, a terrestrial telescope that is expected to see the first light this year should also help reveal other dim objects.
The research was published in January in Astrophysical Letters magazine.
