New Delhi: Planet Earth, which has only one natural satellite — the moon — will be getting a second moon this autumn.
According to scientists, Earth’s gravitational pull will capture a small asteroid which is going to become Earth’s temporary ‘mini moon’ or ‘second moon’.
This ‘mini moon’ will be spotted from September 29 for a couple of months before escaping from the Earth’s gravitational pull.
Astronomer Dr Jennifer Millard, host of the Awesome Astronomy podcast, told BBC Today that the asteroid will enter Earth’s orbit on September 29 and is predicted to leave the orbit by November 25.
“It’s not going to complete a full revolution of our planet, it’s just going to kind of have its orbit altered, just twisted slightly by our own planet and then it’ll continue on its merry way,” said Dr Millard.
The Earth’s second moon can be seen using a professional telescope only. Unfortunately, it cannot be seen with naked eyes as it will be too small and dim.
“Professional telescopes will be able to pick it up. So you’ll be able to look out for lots of wonderful pictures online of this little dot moving past the stars at great speed,” said Millard.
“This story highlights just how busy our solar system is and how much there is out there that we haven’t discovered, because 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 and so I think this highlights the importance of us being able to continually monitor the night sky and find all of these objects,” she added.