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Telescope observations in Hawaii have identified the object NASA’s Planetary Research Institute, Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said Wednesday.
When it was detected in September, the celestial body was identified as an asteroid, Pablo ChodasHowever, a NASA asteroid expert suspected that the failed lunar mission of 1966, the upper stage of the Centaur rocket of the Surveyor-2 spacecraft. The landing unit crashed into the moon, but the rocket passed through the celestial body and orbited the Sun like garbage.
Chodas guess Vishnu reddy, a research team led by an expert from the University of Arizona confirmed this using an infrared telescope in Hawaii.
As a result of his work, not only was the mysterious object examined more closely, but another Centaur missile orbiting the Earth since 1971.
The result is the result of tremendous teamwork. We finally managed to solve the mystery, ”Reddy said.
The roughly 8-meter object, officially marked 2020 SO, was detected in September by a Hawaiian telescope.. Its dimensions are the same as Centauréval, which can be less than 10 meters long and 3 meters in diameter.
Chodas He was struck by, among other things, the fact that the object orbits the Sun in an almost circular orbit, which is unusual for asteroids and is approaching Earth at a slower speed than that of asteroids.
Chodas predicts that the object will orbit Earth for about four months after falling into the planet’s gravitational trap in mid-November, then return to its own orbit around the Sun in March. It is estimated that it will return in 2036.
