*New York: **Astronomers discovered a new Moon orbiting the earth.*
Astronomers have discovered that a car-sized second natural satellite,commonly called a mini-moon, is temporarily orbiting Earth for the pastthree years.
“Earth has a new temporarily captured object/possible mini-moon called 2020CD3. On the night of Feb. 15, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Teddy Pruyneand I found a 20th magnitude object,” Kacper Wierzchos, a researcher withthe Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona`s Lunar and PlanetaryLab, tweeted this week.
The orbit of the newly discovered object, 2020 CD3, shows that it enteredEarth`s orbit some three years ago, The Minor Planet Center (MPC) of theInternational Astronomical Union confirmed.
“The object has a diameter between 1.9 – 3.5 metre (6.2 and 11.5 feet)assuming a C-type asteroid albedo.
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But it`s a big deal as out of approximately 1 million known asteroids, thisis just the second asteroid known to orbit Earth (after 2006 RH120, whichwas also discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey),” Wierzchos said.
In its official designation, MPC had stated that orbit integrationsindicate that “this object is temporarily bound to the Earth.”
“No evidence of perturbations due to solar radiation pressure is seen, andno link to a known artificial object has been found. Further observationsand dynamical studies are strongly encouraged,” it added.
