Relevance: Prelims: Science and technology
Why in news?
- Astronomers have observed a small object orbiting Earth, which they have dubbed a “mini-moon” or the planet’s “second moon”.
About:
- Dubbed 2020 CD3, the mini-moon was discovered by Kacper Wierzchos and Teddy Pruyne of the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) in Arizona on the night of February 15.
- It is actually an asteroid, about the size of a car; its diameter is about 1.9-3.5 m.
- Orbit integrations indicate that this object is temporarily bound to the Earth. i.e. unlike our permanent Moon, the mini-moon is temporary; it will eventually break free of Earth’s orbit and go off on its own way.
Temporarily Captured Object (TCO): - When an asteroid’s orbit crosses Earth’s orbit, it can sometimes be captured into the latter orbit. This is what happened with 2020 CD3. It is now orbiting at a distance farther from Earth. Such an asteroid is called a Temporarily Captured Object (TCO).
- The orbit of such objects is unstable. They have to contend with the gravitational influence of our permanent Moon as well as that of the Sun.
- Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) previously discovered 2006 RH120, which orbited Earth for some time that year, before it escaped in 2007.
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