Researchers have discovered that an object, now dubbed 2020 CD3, has been gravitationally bound to earth for about three years now. And it is only now that we have discovered it. It was on February 19 that astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona spotted a dim object moving quickly across the sky somewhere close to earth. The same object was then observed by researchers at six more observatories around the world who confirmed the presence of what can now be considered a minimoon. The researchers say the new and perhaps temporary minimoon is probably between 1.9 meters and 3.5 metres across, which is around the same size as a mid-size car.
Astronomers say that the new minimoon orbit isn’t stable, and the 2020 CD3 could eventually catapult itself away from Earth. “It is heading away from the Earth-moon system as we speak,” says Grigori Fedorets at Queen’s University Belfast in the UK, told the New Scientist. Incidentally, this isn’t the first-time earth has had an additional moon, albeit temporarily. In 2006, the 2006 RH120 remained within the earth’s gravitational pull between September 2006 and June 2007 before it managed to wriggle free. Chances are, this minimoon will too.
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