The mystery is finally over – the space object captured by Earth’s orbit is actually a rocket booster from the 1960s, NASA confirmed.
On Wednesday, the government space agency said the object known as the “2020 SO” was not an object planet, but a part of the Surveyor 2 spacecraft’s Centaur rocket booster, which launched to the moon in 1966.
“Because of the extreme dizziness of this substance [Center for Near-Earth Object Studies] “It was a challenging project to predict,” said Vijnan Reddy, associate professor at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and a planetary scientist, in a statement. It was not a planet. ”
This 1964 photograph shows the Centurion’s upper-stage rocket before mating the Atlas Booster. The same centaur was used during the release of “Surveyor 2” two years later. Credit: NASA
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Reddy added, “This conclusion was the result of the tremendous efforts of the team.” We were able to solve this mystery because of the great work of the team at Pen-Stars, Paul Chodas and CNEOS, LBT. [Infrared Telescope Facility], And observations from around the world. “
On Tuesday, the rocket booster created the closest brush to Earth when it came within 50,000 kilometers (31,000 miles) of the planet, according to Gianluca Masina, founder of the Virtual Telescope Project.
NASA has posted a video of the 2020 SO orbiting the Earth.
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 said earlier.
The rocket booster was first discovered by the Pan-Stars Survey on September 17, 2020 and announced two days later.
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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