Sunday 6 October 2024

EARTH'S NEWLY CAPTURED MICRO SECOND MOON.

 The ARJUNA asteroids are a group of Asteroids with almost circular orbits with minimal tilt from the plane in which planets orbit the Sun....they have been named after our own Arjuna.....

They are the closest Asteroid group to the earth and are therefore NEO's or Near Earth Objects that continually get tracked by NASA....

Of these Arjuna's, those that have orbital periods less than that of Earth but would intersect the Earth's orbit are known as ATENS...

Those that have orbits larger than that of the Earth and intersect the Earth's orbit are known as APOLLOS....

These have come into the news now as our Earth has captured a 2nd Moon from one of the Arjuna's on Sep 29th....the Asteroid captured is known as 2024 PTS is small and is only 33 feet across...this small Asteroid would remain our 2nd Moon till November 25th...

The discovery of this asteroid becoming the 2nd Moon was made by ATLAS( Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System).....

Although this event is insignificant as far as we are concerned on Earth, it is interesting to study. The same thing can happen with bigger asteroids as well.

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