The new ‘Mini Moon’ to be captured by Earth may be space debris

We’ve got a big moon, you might think “this is enough moons”. But sometimes, the Earth gets greedy and starts pulling small asteroids to stay in orbit. Brief visits of these “mini-moons” are very rare, and so far only two have been confirmed. The most recent was February 15, the Little Rock 2020 CD3 Discovered by astronomers NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey. The famous mini moon In early 2015 the Earth was trapped by gravity and stayed with us again until May 2020, before re-entering the International.

But in an unprecedented way, by 2020, astronomers have announced the discovery of another possible mini-moon: 2020 SO.

Except that it doesn’t act like a small asteroid. Our mini moon has no moon. It moves very slowly to expel rock from a cosmic body. Therefore, astronomers attribute this to space debris from the early days of space racing.

The current theory is that the 2020 SO is the rocket body that first came from the Atlas Centaur-D rocket launched in 1966. The first rocket was fired on September 20th. Dimensions and orbit of 2020 SO, Published by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Seems to align beautifully with the centaur body.

The object will be captured by the Earth’s gravitational pull in October and will have its closest approach on December 1, traveling about 31,000 miles. Astronomers can get a closer look at the object, revealing its shape and its light.

If it’s centaur level – if it’s garbage – it’s more interesting garbage. Has been roaming the solar system for more than five decades. We can learn a little about the effects of space on our old rocket bodies. While the Earth is not going to have any problems, as far as we can tell, it works in a timely manner Reminder of the space debris problem.

Ever since we first started launching rockets and satellites into orbit, we have been polluting the space around our planet. Everything that goes up does not come down immediately. There are thousands of space debris, inactive satellites and small debris orbiting the Earth at very high speeds. Collision with a piece of debris can be catastrophic, blowing a hole through a rocket or satellite. More launches represent more rubbish, and rubbish poses the greatest danger to our desire to travel in space, satellites and space.

You do not have to look back for more than 24 hours to see how space debris occurs. Tuesday, The International Space Station had to “burn a maneuver” Avoiding an unknown cosmic trash can.