Earth's new mini moon

What is needed to trap an asteroid and transform it into a moon, we need to have a gravitational field and the Earth, although it is not a giant planet, has a very respectable gravitational field, it is the largest of the four rocky planets, thanks to it we have Our beloved moon, which is a huge satellite compared to the rest, is the fifth largest satellite in the entire solar system, surpassed only by Ganymede, satellite of Jupiter, Titan, satellite of Saturn, Callisto and the volcanic Io, which are moons of Jupiter and also the The Earth is gravitationally trapped by the Moon at a fairly significant distance of 384,400 km.

When an asteroid passes near the Earth, you can see its trajectory altered by the Earth's gravity, for example, the image above of Apophis, in this graph we have the earth fixed and the sun in the center, we can see the drawing they make the orbits of Mars, Venus, Mercury and making a lot of loops to the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis, according to the predictions of astronomers and if there are no changes Apophis will pass on Friday, April 13, 2029, only 38,000 km from Earth and at that close pass the earth's gravity will alter the orbit of apophis, completely breaking its pattern as you can see in the graph.

The fact that the trajectory of the asteroid is modified by the Earth's gravity does not mean that it ends up falling irremediably towards the earth, it may receive a push and leave on another trajectory to never be seen again or it may shorten its orbit and that we may have it hovering closer or It can even be trapped by the Earth's gravity, even temporarily, although this is not easy at all, planets close to the sun have a hard time capturing moons, why do Mercury and Venus not have moons, especially Venus, which has a mass only a little less? That of the earth the reason is the speed.

To retain an asteroid, it is not only necessary for it to pass nearby, it must also pass at an adequate speed. Near the sun, all objects and planets have to move quickly to avoid falling into the sun's gravitational well. On the contrary, the further away from the sun, the more objects move slowly, that's why Pluto, although it is much smaller than our moon, it is easier for it to capture an asteroid that passes near it and transform it into a moon, because in addition to the Great Charon it has four other moons that we know of, although This is not the only way to have a moon.

We come to a big question, why the Earth has such a huge satellite, not all moons arise in the same way, the above mentioned is the origin of the captured moons that were previously asteroids but there are two other options, moons can arise During the formation of the planet and other moons are created by collision events between planets, especially during the early formation of the solar system, our moon emerged from the impact of the Earth with a planet the size of Mars, which scientists have called tea or teya.

This planet was created at the same time as the Earth, but in the same orbit two planets in the same orbit that is something that cannot end well, a small difference in speed between the Earth and the Earth would end up bringing them dangerously close and in the end there would be In a catastrophic crash, Teya's core ended up sinking into the Earth, contributing to our planet having a larger metallic core than would be normal, normal within the solar system, and other remains of the Earth's crust and Teya were launched from that planet. into space orbiting the earth to eventually merge and create our moon.

This is the explanation for the reason why the Earth has a normally large moon compared to the planet. This relationship is only surpassed in the solar system by Pluto and Charon, which astronomers consider to be a double dwarf planet system. The new minimoon will be called 2024 PT5, is a captured asteroid type, although it is suspected that it could be a fragment of our own Moon, a fragment that was launched into space after a large asteroid collided with the moon.

2024 PT5 was discovered on August 7 and measures around 10 m in diameter, but the most interesting thing is that it is going much slower than normal and that is just what the earth needs to be able to catch it, its relative speed with respect to the Earth is only 1.03 km per second or 3700 km per hour, that is about six times less than the speed of typical asteroids that roam around us, for example the famous Apophis moves at about 7.4 km per second or 26,640 km per hour, I clarify relative speed with respect to the Earth in close approach, this low speed will allow the small asteroid to be trapped in the Earth's orbit between September 29 and November 25, then it will make a turn and will have the maximum approach to our planet on January 9, 2025 at 1.8 million km.

Luckily this new mini Moon, which is in the news now 2024 PT5, does not pose a risk of impact at the moment, but to have more data and confirm the hypothesis that it could be a fragment of the moon, the two Spanish research brothers who discovered This asteroid will be used by the large Canary Islands telescope to carry out a more in-depth investigation.

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