Earth Has New Mini Moon – Burning Issues

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SO WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED?

A pair of astronomers discovered the miniature moon on the night of February 15. It showed up in the nightly observations of the Catalina Sky Survey, a NASA-funded project in
The new mini-moon, 2020 CD3, was discovered using a 1.52-metre telescope at Mount Lemmon Observatory near Tucson, Arizona

NEW MOON

“Earth has a new temporarily captured object/possible mini-moon called 2020 CD3.
On the night of Feb. 15, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Teddy Pruyne and I found a 20th magnitude object,” Kacper Wierzchos, a researcher with the Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Lab

DETAILS

The orbit of the newly discovered object, 2020 CD3, shows that it entered Earth’s orbit some three years ago
he object has a diameter between 1.9 – 3.5 metre (6.2 and 11.5 feet) assuming a C-type asteroid albedo. But it’s a big deal as out of approximately 1 million known asteroids, this is just the second asteroid known to orbit Earth (after 2006 RH120, which was also discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey)

DETAILS

Until now, only one such satellite has been discovered — a three feet wide asteroid called 2006 RH120, which orbited Earth for 18 months in 2006 and 2007.
The new mini-moon, 2020 CD3, was discovered using a 1.52-metre telescope at Mount Lemmon Observatory near Tucson, Arizona

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