After nearly orbiting for around a century in Earth’s orbit, an asteroid has been recognized by the NASA as Earth’s new “mini moon."
Measuring between 120 feet and 300 feet in diameter, the quasi-satellite named Asteroid 2016 HO3 was first discovered on April 27, 2016 by the Pan-STARRS 1 asteroid survey telescope in Hawaii.
Named, “mini moon”, the asteroid technically moves relative to sun, but it seems to be dancing around the earth’s orbit, too, as it may not stay for long.
NASA observed that the asteroid‘s orbit itself has a unique pattern, the rock has been doing slow back-and-forth twist over decades.
In other words, half the time, its orbit takes in front of the Earth, closer to the sun and in the other half it orbit behind the Earth, farther away from the star.
Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object explained, 'The asteroid‘s loops around Earth drift a little ahead or behind from year to year, but when they drift too far forward or backward, Earth’s gravity is just strong enough to reverse the drift and hold onto the asteroid so that it never wanders farther away than about 100 times the distance of the moon.'
'The same effect also prevents the asteroid from approaching much closer than about 38 times the distance of the moon. In effect, this small asteroid is caught in a little dance with Earth,' he said.
This isn’t the first time an asteroid has hold onto the earth’s orbit.10 years ago, the asteroid 2003 YN107 followed a similar orbital pattern for a short time, said Chodas, but it has left the Earth’s vicinity.
