NASA says 'asteroid' approaching Earth turned out to be 'mini-moon'; all you need to know

NASA has resolved mystery of ‘mini-moon’ which was discovered orbiting Earth a few months ago. Astromers at Arizona's Steward Observatory said that y h discovered a second natural satellite that got caught in Earth's orbit n shot to a distant solar system. While NASA astronauts h suspected tiny satellite to be a rare mini-moon, it recently found that cosmic rock was, in fact, an old rocket from a failed moon-landing mission 54 years ago. 

"I'm pretty jazzed about this,” NASA's leing asteroid expert, Paul Chodas said in an AP report. "It's been a hobby of mine to find one of se and draw such a link, and I've been doing it for deces w,” he ded.

Named as asteroid 2020 SO initially, mini-moon was detected by NASA and University of Arizona-funded Catalina Sky Survey. Astromer Kacper Wierzchos, senior research specialist anunced discovery on Twitter on February 25, 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. 

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In new finding, NASA said that object was actually a Centaur upper rocket st that propelled NASA’s Surveyor 2, second lunar lander in American Surveyor program into in 1966. lander h crashed, rocket, however, entered into orbit around sun and was assumed lost until recently, when a telescope in Hawaii detected it. mini-moon was hastily ded to International Astromical Union's Mir Planet Center’s list of asteroids.

Near circular orbit 'unusual'

"Flag number one," AP quoted Paul Chodas saying, who thought that object, roughly 26 feet, h a near-circular orbit quite similar to Earth’s which he thought was “unusual”. Director of Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Sourn California, furr ded, that untitled object was on same plane as Earth and approached Earth at 1,500 mph. This was, by far, an asteroid and seemed like an old Centaur. Astromers later found it to be a junk by charting its orbit riation and rmal effects of sunlight. 

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(With AP Inputs)