Earth welcomes temporary ‘mini moon’ with a Mahabharata connection for 2 months
PTC News Desk: An asteroid named ‘2024 PT5,’ about the size of a school bus, briefly became a temporary “mini-moon” for Earth as it passed close to our planet on Sunday. The asteroid was pulled into Earth’s gravitational field but will only orbit our planet for 57 days before breaking free and drifting back into deep space by late November.
‘2024 PT5’ was discovered on August 7, 2024, by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), an automated monitoring system funded by NASA and based in Hawaii. This system tracks near-Earth objects (NEOs) to assess any potential threats.
Astronomers published a report in the Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society (RNAAS), stating that 2024 PT5’s orbital characteristics resemble those of asteroids originating from the Arjuna asteroid belt, a sparsely populated group of small NEOs.
Dr. Anil Kumar, head of ISRO’s Network for Space Objects Tracking and Analysis (NETRA), which is also monitoring the asteroid, confirmed that the mini-moon is part of the Arjuna asteroid group. This group was named after Arjuna, a legendary warrior from the Mahabharata, symbolising the asteroid’s swift and unpredictable movement through space.
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The asteroid measures just 10 meters in diameter, making it 350,000 times smaller than Earth’s regular Moon, which has a diameter of 3,476 kilometers. Due to its small size, 2024 PT5 is difficult to detect without specialised equipment.
Astronomers Carlos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos explained that NEOs following horseshoe-shaped paths can experience “mini-moon” events, where their energy temporarily becomes negative, allowing them to orbit Earth for a short period—though not always completing a full revolution.
This is not the first time Earth has temporarily gained a mini-moon. Similar events occurred in 1997, 2013, and 2018. On November 25, 2024, asteroid 2024 PT5 will leave Earth’s orbit and resume its journey through the cosmos, but it is expected to pass by Earth again in 2055.
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