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Look up at the sky – it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s … space junk?
A mysterious space object that was captured by Earth’s orbit and is widely believed to be a 1960s rocket thruster is now visible to skygazers as it nears the planet.
Known as the 2020 SO, the object is believed to be part of a Centaur rocket thruster from the Surveyor 2 spacecraft, NASA said in November, although this was not confirmed.
This 1964 photograph shows a Centaur top stage rocket before it was mated to an Atlas booster. A similar Centaur was used when Surveyor 2 launched two years later. Credit: NASA
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The virtual telescope project broadcasts live over the newly created Earth satellite. It is predicted to be closest to our planet, when 2020 SO will be within 50,000 kilometers (31,000 miles) of Earth on December 1, VTP founder Gianluca Masi wrote on the website. project.
NASA has released a video of the 2020 SW looping orbits around Earth.
This overview will allow astronomers to determine if it is indeed part of the Centaur upper stage rocket thruster that lifted Surveyor 2, or something else.
“The near-Earth object 2020 SO, discovered by the Pan-STARRS survey on September 17, 2020 and announced two days later by the Minor Planet Center, has an estimated diameter of between 4.5 and 10 meters (source: Nasa / JPL) ”, Masi added.“ We are not sure if this is an asteroid (ie a natural body), as it could be the propellant of rocket from the Surveyor 2 Nasa mission, dating from 1966. In addition, from November 8, 2020 to March 2021, it will be a temporary satellite of our home planet. ”
Whether 2020 SO is man-made or an asteroid, its orbit around the sun is very similar to Earth, leading NASA to believe it is likely part of Surveyor 2, which was launched to the moon in 1966.
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“One of the possible paths for 2020 therefore brought the object very close to the Earth and the Moon at the end of September 1966,” said the director of the Center for Studies on Near-Earth Objects, Paul Chodas, in a press release. November. “It was like a Eureka moment when a quick check of the lunar mission launch dates showed a match with the Surveyor 2 mission.”
Unfortunately, the Surveyor 2 never completed its journey, crashing into the lunar surface on September 23, 1966. However, the Centaur booster “sailed beyond the Moon and disappeared into an unknown orbit around the Sun” NASA added.
2020 SO initially “slowly drifted” into the Earth’s Hill sphere on November 8, 2020, and will remain there for about four months before returning to orbit around the sun in March 2021.
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