Asteroid Headed Towards Earth: Don’t Panic
By Julianne Ellis
Staff Writer
There’s nothing quite like the fear of being killed by an asteroid to get you in the Halloween mood, but don’t panic. I promise you haven’t been cast into a 2024 remake of the terrible movie Don’t Look Up.
An asteroid has been temporarily captured by Earth’s orbit. People have been advertising this asteroid as a mini-moon, but it isn’t a moon at all. So, what is it? Discovered on August 7th by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System—or ATLAS, to avoid tripping over your tongue—it was named Asteroid 2024 PT5.
This asteroid is about 10 meters large (the size of a school bus). This may seem giant, but it is relatively small in terms of things flying towards Earth; we have nothing to worry about.
Unfortunately, this asteroid cannot be seen by the naked eye. In fact, you wouldn’t even be able to tell it was there if you didn’t know it. No, you can’t even see it with that fancy telescope in your attic. This is because it is simply too small and too far away. Still, it can be seen by scientific, research-grade telescopes. Hopefully, we will be able to catch a glimpse of the “mini-moon” through the eyes of a photograph.
On September 29th, it was officially captured into Earth’s orbit, where we welcomed it with open arms.
While this may seem like an otherworldly phenomenon, these “mini-moons” are rather common, occurring every 10-20 years. The solar system has as many as 1.1 million asteroids, with over 30,000 of them being near-Earth objects—meaning they pass close to Earth’s orbit. Sometimes, they pass close enough to be pulled into our planet’s orbit. Our new friend, 2024 PT5, came from the Arjuna asteroid belt, which follows a heliocentric path like Earth.
Knowing this, it is unsurprising that the occasional asteroid gets picked up by Earth’s orbit. If I were an asteroid, I would want to hang out with us, too. The asteroid will stay with us for approximately two months—just one orbit—before being sent back to its usual trajectory. It should return to us in 2055. We will miss it dearly, but while it is here, we have an excellent opportunity to study the orbital behaviour of asteroids—if you’re into that.