Rare Celestial Event on the Horizon; Planet Earth’s “New” Moon?

If you are like anyone, you've probably on more than one occasion found yourself looking up at the nighttime sky and marveled at the sky and the magnificent site of the stars in space. Whether you've just used your own two eyes or you've dabbled in the field of astronomy with your own telescope in the backyard, outer space, the stars, the entire cosmos has captivated human imagination and curiosity for thousands of years.

Depending on the time of year that you look up at the sky, you may also be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a celestial event. For instance back in April we all anxiously prepared for the big Solar Eclipse. Throughout the year we've also been able to see other events like supermoons and meteor showers.

This bring us to present day now where a rather rare celestial event is set to begin at the end of the month of September and will continue through towards the end of the year.

Planet Earth's Second Moon

No you didn't read that wrong; our planet, planet Earth will be gaining a second moon...well kind of. See the "second moon" in question isn't like the moon as we know it. This second moon isn't actually a moon at all, it's an asteroid.

According to an article from Space.com, this asteroid is called 2024 PT5. 2024 PT5 is from the Arjuna asteroid belt. This asteroid belt is a "...secondary asteroid belt made of space rocks that follow orbits very similar to that of Earth".

2024 PT5 is merely a fragment from that asteroid belt and on its travels through space, it will be coming close by Earth. For those that didn't know on the NASA website, there is this incredible feature called "Eyes On". This feature lets users see into space right from their computer screen and track anything from different named asteroids to planets.

Using the Eyes On tool, we could track asteroid 2024 PT5 and gather some general info on it and its general trajectory.

Asteroid PT5 Facts

First question many may wonder is just how big actually is 2024 PT5? Well compared humans to 2024 PT5 seems pretty big measuring in at 10.81 meters.1 meter is approximately equivalent to 3 feet (3.28 feet precisely) so with some simple math that means 2024 PT5 is a little more than 35 feet in length.

So while it is big in some ways, PT5 isn't particularly large and it definitely is nowhere near the size of our moon, so it won't be visible to the naked eye.

Now PT5 is quickly approaching Earth, so much so that it will actually become temporarily trapped in Earth's gravity hence why it'll travel around with us for the next few months. How close will it actually get though?

In the article from Space.com, it states that some Asteroids from the Arjuna belt do get quite close to Earth, close meaning 2.8 million miles away. Again when talking space, it all comes down to perspective; 2.8 million miles is tremendous distance with standard human comprehension but in terms of space it's actually incredibly close distance.

One of the units of measurement used with calculations in space is called AU's or astronomical units. NASA defines 1 AU as being equal to 92,955,807.273 miles or approximately the distance between the Earth and our Sun. Currently 2024 PT5 is approximately 0.02 AU's from Earth. That is just shy of 2.0 million miles (1.86 million miles approximately).

Past Asteroid Encounters

Now this is not the first time that events like this have happened between planet Earth and some asteroids. These instances have a occurred a few times in recent decades. The Space article mentions that this type of capture moment had occurred back in 1991 with the asteroid VG, 2006 RH120, 2020 CD3 and  2022 NX1.

Both the 2006 and 2020 events were considered to be "long captures" while the events in 1991 and 2022 were on the short side in terms of how long each object stuck around. Long capture moments happen approximately once every 10-20 years. 2024 PT5 falls into the short category and once the next two months are over, it will return to its place with the arjuna belt in its sun centered orbit.

Fact of the matter is that scientists, astronomers track, study and keep records for numerous asteroids just like 2024 PT5 all the time. You can see a number of them by using NASA's Eyes On tech. For the most part though we carry on in our day to day lives none the wiser to what or rather how much is out there.

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That is on top of the fact that the Earth is pelted everyday by asteroids and material from outer space. The only reason we don't see it is because the vast majority of the stuff burns up when hurdling through our atmosphere.

If the day ever comes where we need to worry about something hitting us from outer space, well all know about it one way or the other. Chances are, we'll all see it coming from a few million miles away.