THE TRANSIENT COMRADE OF OUR PALE BLUE DOT

The scientific world was mesmerized by the identification of another moon around the earth in February 2020. They called it the ‘ Mini-Moon ‘ (official name: 2020 CD3) since its size no longer exceeds than that of a normal car (small, 3-foot-wide (0.9 meters) space rock). The magnitude studies concluded the existence of asteroid debris orbiting around the sun which at rare times get caught by our earth. After 2006, this is the second time that earth is temporarily capturing an object.

This diagram shows the orbit of 2020 CD3 in red and orange, representing its capture by Earth’s gravity and eventual ejection from the the Earth-moon system. The white band is our moon’s orbit; Earth (not shown) would be at the center of the band. (Image by Tony Dunn, GravitySimulator)

All good things are wild and free. At last, our mini-moon left the orbit of the earth after an exciting visit around the planet. According to The Atlantic, the temporal object left our orbit by March 7 following a chaotic pattern of oscillation. Anyways, our mini-moon might be coming near us in 2044 but would be seeing us from a distance.

For all the astrophile out there, it would be distressing that for a long time there won’t be any globetrotters like this coming our way, still, there is a slight chance that our earth and moon would be capturing a small rock to give it a tour.