Earth’s second minimoon was the size of a car and was located 8,100 miles from Earth

Earth caught its second minimoon this year which has been orbiting the planet for 2.7 years and now scientists have revealed intricate details about the cosmic visitor.

Using data collected with the Lowell Discovery Telescope, astronomers determined that the 2020 CDE, or CD3, was nearly five feet in diameter – about the size of a car – and was within 8,100 miles of Earth at its closest approach.

The team studied the changing brightness of CD3, allowing them to see that its speed of rotation was about three minutes.

These observations helped clarify that the object was indeed an asteroid and not a relic of man-made space debris, like another object discovered a few months ago.

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Grigori Fedorets of Queen’s University Belfast said: ‘Turnover rate was probably the biggest unanswered question in this research. The Lowell team has shown that it spins slower than expected for objects of this size.

The 2020 CD3 was spotted in February by the Catalina Sky Survey funded by NASA.

However, early observations estimate it to be much larger – experts have said it is up to 12 feet in diameter.

The minimoon was seen on February 15 by astronomers Kacper Wierzchos and Teddy Pruyne, and then the team saw it four more times two days later – that was enough evidence to announce that Earth had a new visitor.

‘GREAT NEWS. Earth has a new Temporarily Captured Object / Possible mini-moon called 2020 CD3. On the night of February 15, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Teddy Pruyne and I found a magnitude 20 object, ” Wierzchos shared in a tweet on February 25, after the Minor Planet Center, a branch of the Union international astronomer, classified the asteroid as a temporarily captured object.

Now, a new study reveals more details about the minimoon that has since traveled to space – it left in March.

Lowell Observatory astronomer Nick Moskovitz and former Lowell postdoctoral researcher / current Arecibo Observatory scientist Maxime Devogele participated in the effort, aided in observing on the Lowell Discovery Telescope (LDT) by the University of Maryland Quanzhi Ye.

Astronomers used the large monolithic imager on the LDT to observe the rotation of CD3, which revealed a number of features of the asteroid.

“Observing such small objects is difficult and requires a telescope large enough to see them. Plus, their transient nature means the window of time to observe them can close quickly, the team shared in a statement.

However, LDT is designed for such events.

“This object was not bright enough to be studied for very long,” Moskovitz said.

“The fact that we have this telescope in our backyard and were able to react quickly has really made a difference.

Although minimoons are rare, the team predicts more will appear over the next decade.

According to Fedorets, “minimoons are expected to be discovered in large numbers over the next decade, with the opening of the Vera C. Rubin observatory scheduled for 2023”.

The first minimoon was discovered in 2006 and astronomers believed there would be a third this year when they spotted an object with an inbound trajectory toward Earth.

Dubbed 2020 SO, the entity has been in an Earth-like orbit for over a year and is expected to be trapped in our planet’s gravity from October and stay until May 2021.

However, it was later determined that this was a discontinued part of the Surveyor 2 Centaur rocket launched in 1966.