Earth has two 'mini Moons' and the second has been orbiting us for nearly 3 years

Researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (IfA) announced a “detailed research” into the prospect of discovery of other mini-moons in the Earth’s solar system months after the former mini-moon, known as 2020 CD3, observed by Arizona's Steward Observatory turned out to be space junk. On November 22, a team of 23 researchers from 14 academic institutions announced a study related to  2020 CD3 to determine the characteristics of new mini-moons in the future. The analysis was published in the Astronomical Journal that outlined ‘Distinguishing minimoons from space junk’. 

The presumed mini-moon dubbed as 2020 CD3 was first discovered using the 1.5m Mt. Lemmon telescope, operated by the Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson. Initially, it was believed to be a temporary satellite and was named asteroid 2020 SO. Later, Astronomer Kacper Wierzchos, senior research specialist announced the discovery on Twitter on February 25, 2020, saying, a natural satellite 6.2 and 11.5 feet (1.9 to 3.5 m) in diameter, consisting of a carbon-rich asteroid was discovered. “Earth has a new temporarily captured object/Possible mini-moon called 2020 CD3,” he declared. However, it turned out that the 3-foot-wide (0.9 meters) space rock was remain of a rocket booster from a failed moon-landing mission 54 years ago. 

Scientists are now studying how they could distinguish minions from the artificial “space junk”  by observing the trajectories and the size. 2020 CD3 was between the size of a small dishwasher and a refrigerator, which makes it a likely fragment of an asteroid and not a mini-moon. “The high-precision astrometry we obtained from the University of Hawaiʻi 2.2-meter telescope and the Canada-France-Hawaiʻi Telescope on Maunakea was absolutely essential to confirm that 2020 CD3 is a captured asteroid, and not something artificial,” said Dora Föhring, IfA researcher and paper co-author.

Read:  NASA's Hubble Telescope Captures Black Hole's 'shadow Beams' Spilling Out

Read: NASA Pays Tribute To Edwin Hubble, Shares Stunning Montage Of Space Discoveries | Watch

Meanwhile, the team’s calculation proved that despite orbiting the Earth for over two and a half years, there were only one or two opportunities when it was “bright enough” before it flung back out into an orbit. This cast a doubt. Meanwhile, IfA Astronomer Robert Jedicke, a co-author on the paper suggested that the modern astronomical telescopes “can detect minimoons the size of big boulders as far away as the Moon.” 

Using the Asteroid mining techniques

The lead author of the paper and a postdoctoral research fellow at the Astrophysics Research Centre at Queen’s University in Belfast, Grigori Fedorets notes that the Minimoons are the outstanding targets for space missions and asteroid mining techniques. “Minimoons effectively bring the asteroid belt close to the Earth so that, in astronomical terms, we can reach out and touch them, and potentially collect samples,” he said.

"Minimoons are expected to be discovered in high numbers in the following decade, with the commissioning of the Vera C. Rubin observatory and its Legacy Survey of Space and Time, expected to commence operations in 2023," Nordic Optical Telescope observatory wrote in a release.

Observatory for 'mini-moons' under construction

Fedorets said, citing the research, that “It is actually difficult to monitor and control spacecraft around distant asteroids, adding that it can take extremely long to verify and a single command has to be properly executed. Whereas in the case of mini-moons, scientists can use a  joystick at ground control to perform mining operations. The study was initiated after scientists observed 2020 CD3 once again orbiting the Sun, and scientists will shortly commence observing other mini-moons from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory currently under construction in Chile which will begin operations related to mini-moons in late 2022, early 2023.

Read: NASA Writes Back To A 9-year-old Who Asked For A Job To Save Earth From Aliens; Read Here

Read: NASA Scientists Capture 'sound Of Our Star', Netizens Say It Makes Them 'feel Great'