Earth’s second moon will approach Earth before going into space next week, never to be seen again.
“Which other moon,” you ask? Astronomers call it 2020 SO – a small object that orbited Earth between our planet and the Moon in September 2020.
Temporary satellites like these are known as minimums, although calling it the moon is a bit misleading in this case; In December 2020, NASA researchers discovered that the object object was not a space rock, but the remains of a 1960s rocket booster involved in the American Surveyor Lunar Mission.
The moonless minimal made its closest approach to Earth on December 1 (the day before NASA called it a long-lost booster), but returned to claim another victory, according to EarthSky.org. Has been.
The Minimoon 2020 SO will make its final close approach to Earth on Tuesday (February 2) at about 140,000 miles (220,000 kilometers) or 58 percent of the way between Earth and the Moon.
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According to Arthasky, the booster will then leave Earth’s orbit by March 2021. After that, the former minimun will be another thing revolving around the sun. The Virtual Telescope Project in Rome will bid farewell to the object line on the night of February 1st.
NASA found that the object has been making very close approaches to Earth for decades, even relatively close to 1966 – the year the agency began investigating its Surveyor 2 moon based on the back of the Centurion rocket booster.
Which gave scientists their first big clue that 2020 SO was man-made; They confirmed this after comparing The Buzzet’s chemical makeup with another rocket booster in orbit since 1971.
Godspeed, Minimum 2020 S.O. We built you. We left you. And now, you leave us.
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This article was originally published by Live Science. Read the original article here.
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