NASA says mysterious ‘mini-moon’ is actually 1960s rocket thruster

Welcome back, Surveyor 2 Centaur Rocket Booster. We’ve just had a new chapter in a bittersweet space saga that involves a fiery launch, a doomed lunar mission, and decades of wandering into space.

A rocket thruster used by NASA to launch the Surveyor 2 lunar lander in 1966 returned to us for temporary rotation in the form of a mini-moon orbiting Earth. When scientists spotted it in September, they named it 2020 SO. On Wednesday, NASA announced that the strange object had been positively identified as the booster of the 60s.

While the booster did its job admirably in 1966, the lander did not survive a crash landing on the surface of the moon.

The specific orbit of the booster around the sun warned astronomers it was probably not an asteroid, one of the many space rocks that meander around our cosmic quarter. Some detectors found the thruster near Earth in 1966.

Telescope observations have now revealed the stainless steel composition of SO 2020. This cosmic detective work consisted of comparing spectral data from the enigmatic object with data collected from a known Centaur rocker amplifier that has been floating in space since 1971. It was a game.

The object has generated a lot of interest due to the mystery surrounding it and the fact that it was captured in Earth orbit which makes it a cute little visiting mini moon. the Virtual Telescope Project Live Stream 2020 SO when he came close to Earth on November 30.

The Centaur booster will stay with us for a few months, but it is expected to continue its space adventures orbiting the sun in March 2021. At this point, we can all say, “Goodnight, Centaur. Goodnight, mini-moon.”