Look at the sky – it’s a bird, it’s an airplane, it’s … space junk?
A mysterious space object that has been captured by Earth’s orbit and has been widely regarded as a rocket booster since the 1960s can now be seen for SkyGazers approaching the planet.
Known as the 2020 SO, the object is believed to be part of the St Craft 2 rocket booster of the Object Surveyor 2 spacecraft, NASA said in November, although it has not been confirmed.
This 1964 photograph shows the Centurion’s upper-stage rocket before mating the Atlas Booster. The same centaur was used two years after the start of Surveyor 2. Credits: NASA
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The Virtual Telescope project is bringing the flyby of the newly-minted Earth satellite to life. To keep its closest brush with our planet, while 2020 S.O. It will come within 50,000 kilometers (31,000 miles) of Earth on December 1, VTP founder Gianluca Masi wrote on the project’s website.
NASA has posted a video of the 2020 SO orbiting the Earth.
This flyby will allow astronomers to determine if it is actually part of the Centaur upper stage rocket booster that picked up Surveyor 2 or something else.
“Near-Earth object object 2020 SO, discovered by Pan-Stars Survey on September 17, 2020 and released two days later by the Minor Planet Center, has an estimated diameter of – – – 10 meters (source) : NASA / JPL), “Auntie added. “We are not sure if it is an asteroid (i.e. a natural body), as it could be a rocket booster from the Surveyor 2 NASA mission in 1966. Also, from Nov. 8, 2020 to March 2021, it Become a temporary satellite of our planet. ”
2020 SO Man-made or planet, the orbit around the Sun is similar to that of Earth, leading NASA to believe that it is actually part of Surveyor 2, which orbited the Moon in 1966.
The space that is successfully ‘bombed’ the asteroid is close to home with valuable cargo.
“In late September 1966, the Earth project came very close to the Earth and the Moon in a possible route to 2020 SO,” Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Neer-Earth Ject Project Studies, said in a November statement. “It was like the Eureka moment when a quick check of the launch date for the lunar mission showed a match with the Surveyor 2 mission.”
Unfortunately, Surveyor 2 never completed its voyage, crashing to the surface of the moon on September 23, 1966. However, the centaur booster “went to the moon in a ship and disappeared into orbit unknown to the sun,” NASA added.
The 2020 SO initially “slowly flowed” into the Earth’s hill region on November 8, 2020, and will remain there for about four months before going into orbit around the Sun in March 2021.
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