- At the end of 2020, Earth received a new visitor in the form of what was originally thought to be a natural piece of space debris, such as a small asteroid.
- The object turned out to be a dropped rocket stage that was launched half a century ago and happened to turn around and be sucked in by the gravitational pull of the Earth.
- Now, as it completes its final loop of our planet, the object will soon be thrown back into space and is unlikely to visit our planet again.
You may have missed the news last year – you know, because of the global pandemic and what not – but a mysterious object was intercepted by Earth in November. When astronomers first saw it in our direction, they thought it was a space rock of some kind, and although it was not on a collision course with our planet, it was destined to orbit the Earth for at least a while.
As it turned out, the object was not a space rock or a comet, but a piece of artificial debris. The object, a rocket amplifier launched more than half a century ago, was part of the Surveyor 2 mission to the Moon, and debris has hung around our planet ever since. Now, with another walk around our world, the “mini-Moon” will soon be headed back into space and we are unlikely to meet it again.
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According to EarthSky, the rocket first completed a very close flight to Earth before moving away from our planet to be attracted again. This last loop will be the last, because its momentum will be enough to allow it to escape the gravity of the Earth and embark on an adventure that orbits the Sun.
The concept of the “mini-moon” is not exactly science fiction, and since we know of a lot of small rocky bodies hanging in our forest neck, it seemed quite possible that the object was indeed a space rock. If that were the case, it would have been a real miniature (and temporary) moon, but the fact that it was just man-made garbage means that it does not qualify for such a label.
Astronomers first became suspicious that the object was created by man when they realized that its path around the Sun appeared to be very similar to that of the Earth. It completed one orbit every 387 days on Earth, which is virtually identical to the orbit of our planet, and the incredibly slow speed suggested it was not an asteroid. Now that we know what it really is, all these clues make a lot more sense.
Soon, however, it will disappear. The object is likely to cross the Earth for the last time in early February and then leave us permanently. Now everyone said goodbye.
Mike Wehner has reported on technology and video games over the past decade, covering breaking news and trends in VR, portable devices, smartphones and future technology. Most recently, Mike served as technical editor at The Daily Dot and was featured in USA Today, Time.com and countless other internet outlets and printmakers. His love of reporting is second only to gambling addiction.