“Mini Moon” is supposed to orbit the Earth for two months

Get ready for a cosmic surprise this fall: Earth is on the verge of a second moon, according to scientists.

A small asteroid will be caught by Earth's gravitational pull and temporarily become a “mini-moon.”

This space visitor will be there for a few months starting September 29th before escaping Earth's gravity again.

Unfortunately, the second moon is too small and faint to be seen unless you have a professional telescope.

The asteroid was first discovered on August 7 by NASA's Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS).

Scientists have determined its trajectory in a Study published in Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society.

The asteroid, which scientists call 2024 PT5, comes from the Arjuna asteroid belt, which contains rocks that follow an orbit very similar to Earth's.

Occasionally, some of these asteroids come relatively close, reaching distances of up to 2.8 million miles (4.5 million km) from our planet.

According to researchers involved in the study, when an asteroid like this moves at a relatively low speed of about 2,200 miles per hour (3,540 km/h), Earth's gravitational field can exert a strong influence, enough to temporarily trap it.

That's exactly what will happen: Starting this weekend, this small asteroid will orbit Earth for about two months.

Dr. Jennifer Millard, astronomer and host of the “Awesome Astronomy” podcast, told the BBC's “Today” program that the asteroid will enter orbit on September 29th and is then expected to leave it on November 25th.

“It won't complete a full revolution of our planet, it will just undergo some kind of change in the orbit, just a slight rotation by our own planet, and then it will continue on its merry way,” she said.

The asteroid is about 10 m long, making it tiny compared to Earth's moon, which has a diameter of about 3,474 km.

Because it is small and made of matte rock, it is not visible to people on Earth, even if they use binoculars or a home telescope.

“Professional telescopes can capture it. “So you can look online for lots of wonderful images of this little speck of dots moving past the stars at great speed,” said Dr. Millard.

Minimoons have been spotted before, and it is thought that many more have likely gone unnoticed.

Some even come back for repeat visits, the asteroid 2022 NX1 becoming a minimoon again in 1981 and 2022.

So don't worry if you miss this – scientists predict that in 2024 PT5 will also return to Earth's orbit in 2055.

“This story shows how busy our solar system is and how much there is out there that we haven't discovered yet, as this asteroid was only discovered this year.”

“There are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of objects out there that we haven't discovered yet, and so I think this highlights how important it is that we can continually monitor the night sky and find all of these objects,” he told Dr . Millard.