Earth Will Have a Temporary Second Moon Starting Late September, but You Won’t Be Able to See It
TL;DR
Starting on September 29, Earth will have a temporary second moon, an asteroid named 2024 PT5. This mini-moon, about 33 feet in diameter, will orbit Earth for less than two months before moving away on November 25. Despite being captured by Earth’s gravity, 2024 PT5 will be too small and dim to be visible without professional-grade equipment. Though not Earth’s first mini-moon, these events are rare, and 2024 PT5 is expected to return in 2025 and again in 2055. It likely belongs to the Arjuna group of near-Earth objects.
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Starting at the end of September, Earth will have a second moon, but don’t get too accustomed to it. This situation will last for less than two months, and it’s unlikely that you’ll actually be able to see this temporary second moon.
The “mini-moon” is actually a small asteroid called 2024 PT5, which was discovered on August 7 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). The asteroid is on a path that will cause it to be briefly captured by Earth’s gravity. According to calculations by Carlos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos, researchers at Spain’s Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the asteroid will orbit Earth from September 29 to November 25, completing just one orbit before moving away.
2024 PT5 is quite small, only about 33 feet (10 meters) in diameter, so don’t expect to spot it with the naked eye. Even with a backyard telescope, you’ll probably miss it, as it will have a faint magnitude value of 22 at best, according to EarthSky (objects need a magnitude of 6 or lower to be visible without aid).
In their paper published in Research Notes of the AAS, the researchers note that while having two moons is rare, it’s not unprecedented. A similar event occurred in July 2006 when a mini-moon orbited Earth for about a year. Another one stayed in orbit for several years before breaking free of Earth’s gravity in May 2020. Occasionally, other objects are briefly pulled in by Earth’s gravity but escape before completing a full orbit. In 2020, scientists thought they had found another mini-moon, but the data was inconclusive.
The researchers suggest the asteroid could come from the Arjuna asteroid group—a set of near-Earth objects that follow a similar orbit to Earth. “The object is unlikely to be artificial as its short-term dynamic evolution closely mirrors that of 2022 NX1,” another asteroid that became a mini-moon in 1981 and again in 2022, the researchers wrote.
Amateur astronomer Tony Dunn shared a simulation of the asteroid’s path on X, which sheds light on its journey.
If you miss seeing 2024 PT5 this time, you’ll have another chance to “catch its vibes” (since you won’t be able to actually see it). The astronomers predict it will fly by Earth again on January 9, 2025, and after that, it won’t return until 2055.
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Earth to Moon: She meant nothing to me, bebe. It was just a 2 month orbit.
Can we please capture one? We’ve seen a lot of these go by and no one is talking about using a spacecraft to capture it into a stage orbit. With these small ones the ΔV requirements are within the limits of our current technology.