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“What is the second moon,” you ask? Astronomers call it 2020 SO (2020 small object), a small object that orbited Earth roughly halfway between our planet and the Moon in 2020 in September.
Temporal satellites like this are known as mini moons, although in this case calling it a moon is a bit misleading. 2020 December. NASA researchers discovered that the object is not a space rock at all, and in 1966, remains of a rocket engine involved in lunar Surveyor 2 missions.
The mini-moon was closest to Earth on December 1 (the day before NASA identified it as a long-lost rocket engine), but it will return for another round of victory, writes EarthSky.org.
The 2020 SW mini moon on Tuesday (February 2) will approach Earth at a distance of 220,000 kilometers, or 58 percent. path between the Earth and the Moon.
According to EarthSky, the mini moon will move away until 2021. March. it will leave Earth’s orbit completely. After that, it will be just another object of the many that orbit the Sun.
The Surveyor 2 spacecraft was launched to the Moon in 1966 with an Atlas-Centaur rocket. However, the mission failed: the spacecraft crashed into the Moon, just southeast of the Copernicus crater. The top of the Centaur rocket flew past the Moon and disappeared.
Well now the mini moon is coming home.
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