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The mysterious space material is expected to return in March.
An exciting discovery announced by the researchers, as they confirmed that a slow-moving object of unknown origin has just completed a close flight from our planet, before returning to the solar system, and the mysterious space material is expected to return in March.
The strange “Minimoon” – officially named 2020 SO – has been the subject of speculation since its discovery by the Pan-STARRS survey on September 17. It was classified as an asteroid, but scientists so far do not have sufficient knowledge of what the object is, and some have speculated that it is part of an ancient missile.
Whatever it is, the diameter of a space object is between five and ten meters, and it exceeds our planet at a distance of less than 50,000 kilometers, or only 13% of the distance to the moon, within the reach of gravity. of our planet, which means that it will return again in a few months.
The mystery surrounding the origin of the object lies in how it traveled, since it moves at a much slower speed than the vast majority of asteroids, which usually exceed between 11 and 72 kilometers per second, and planetary defense scientists find them at through telescopes and detection systems.
Meanwhile, the SO 2020 travels at just 0.6 kilometers per second.
Many in the scientific community believe it is a remnant of the Surveyor 2 spacecraft, which landed on the moon in 1966.
The Virtual Telescope Project said: “We are not sure if it is an asteroid (that is, a natural object), as it could be the missile propellant for NASA’s Surveyor 2 mission, which dates back to 1966,” according to RT .
Source: Russia Today
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