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Earth’s second moon will move closer to the planet next week before drifting into space, never to be seen again.
“What a second moon,” you ask? Astronomers call it 2020 SO – a small object that fell on Earth’s orbit halfway between our planet and the moon in September 2020. Temporary satellites like these are known as minimoons, although they are called a moon. be a little misleading in this case; in December 2020, NASA researchers learned that the object was not a space rock at all, but rather the remains of a rocket thruster from the 1960s involved in American Surveyor lunar missions.
This non-lunar minimoon made its closest-to-Earth approach on December 1 (the day before NASA was identified as the long-lost booster), but it returns for another victory lap, according to EarthSky.org. Minimoon 2020 SO will make a final close approach to Earth on Tuesday (February 2) about 140,000 miles (220,000 kilometers) from Earth, or 58% of the distance between Earth and the Moon.
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The thruster will pull away after that, leaving Earth’s orbit entirely by March 2021, according to EarthSky. After that, the old minimoon will be just another object orbiting the sun. The Virtual Telescope Project in Rome will host an online farewell to the object on the night of February 1.
NASA has learned that the object has made several close approaches to Earth over the decades, even coming relatively close in 1966 – the year the agency launched its Surveyor 2 lunar probe from the back of a thruster. Centaur rocket. This gave scientists their first big clue that 2020 SO was man-made; they confirmed this after comparing the object’s chemical makeup to that of another rocket thruster, which has been in orbit since 1971.
Godspeed, minimoon 2020 SO. We built you. We have abandoned you. And now you are abandoning us.
Originally posted on Live Science.
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