{"id":20690,"date":"2025-01-23T18:54:38","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T19:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20690"},"modified":"2025-01-23T20:26:41","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T20:26:41","slug":"earths-mini-moon-was-probably-a-piece-of-its-real-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20690","title":{"rendered":"Earth\u2019s Mini-Moon Was Probably a Piece of Its Real Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientists think a small rock discovered near Earth last August was hurled into space by an ancient impact on the lunar surface.<\/p>\n

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For a few months last fall, a school-bus-size space rock named 2024 PT5 gained fame<\/a> as Earth\u2019s new \u201cmini-moon.\u201d Astronomers rushed to study the object while it was still close enough to Earth to observe in detail.<\/p>\n

Now, one team has concluded that 2024 PT5 is a chunk of the real moon. The rock was most likely flung into space by an impact on the lunar surface that occurred sometime within the past tens of thousand years, according to a study<\/a> published earlier this month in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.<\/p>\n

This is the second time scientists have linked a near-Earth object to the moon, after a 2021 study identified the object 469219 Kamo\u02bboalewa<\/a> as possibly lunar in origin. Taken together, the research reveals a population of exiled moon rocks, or \u201clunar ejecta,\u201d that has remained hidden up until now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe knew that lunar ejecta were potentially hiding in these kinds of really near-Earth orbits,\u201d said Teddy Kareta, a postdoctoral researcher at Lowell Observatory in Arizona who led the research.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The asteroid 2024 PT5 was probably the result of an earlier object\u2019s collision with the moon.<\/span>Tony Dunn<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Earth often encounters drifting objects, including asteroids or meteoroids, that can become temporary moons or \u201cquasi-satellites.\u201d Advanced observatories, such as the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, are designed to spot these fellow travelers, which are typically visible for only weeks or months.<\/p>\n

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Scientists think a small rock discovered near Earth last August was hurled into space by an ancient impact on the lunar surface.For a few months last fall, a school-bus-size space rock named 2024 PT5 gained fame as Earth\u2019s new \u201cmini-moon.\u201d Astronomers rushed to study the object while it was still close enough to Earth to observe in detail.Now, one team has concluded that 2024 PT5 is a chunk of the real moon. The rock was most likely flung into space by an impact on the lunar surface that occurred sometime within the past tens of thousand years, according to a study published earlier this month in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.This is the second time scientists have linked a near-Earth object to the moon, after a 2021 study identified the object 469219 Kamo\u02bboalewa as possibly lunar in origin. Taken together, the research reveals a population of exiled moon rocks, or \u201clunar ejecta,\u201d that has remained hidden up until now.\u201cWe knew that lunar ejecta were potentially hiding in these kinds of really near-Earth orbits,\u201d said Teddy Kareta, a postdoctoral researcher at Lowell Observatory in Arizona who led the research.The asteroid 2024 PT5 was probably the result of an earlier object\u2019s collision with the moon.Tony DunnEarth often encounters drifting objects, including asteroids or meteoroids, that can become temporary moons or \u201cquasi-satellites.\u201d Advanced observatories, such as the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, are designed to spot these fellow travelers, which are typically visible for only weeks or months.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20692,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20690"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20693,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20690\/revisions\/20693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}