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TEXAS — Some space lovers are geeking out over the latest celestial event that has been hidden in plain sight for the last six decades.
This summer, astronomers in Hawaii discovered a quasi-moon near Earth called 2025 PN7.
Ryan Bennett and other stargazers have their eyes set on the latest space invader looping around the galaxy.
“This guy is just really close to us in our orbit, and it’s going around us in a racetrack. Kind of about the same speed we are, but sometimes we get ahead of that. Sometimes it gets ahead of us. We’re starting to observe these things a lot better. So really what we’re just starting to see are just things that have been there for a while,” said Bennett, planetarium and astronomy program director at the University of North Texas.
This little guy has been in our orbit for approximately 60 years, to be exact.
“One astronomer said, ‘It’s like trying to look at a picture of a piece of charcoal five miles away.’ It’s dark, you can’t really see much, and it’s so far away you need a very powerful telescope to even detect it,” said Michelle Risse, planetarium coordinator at the Scobee Education Center in San Antonio.
Not even the telescope at UNT’s observatory is gonna cut it.
Earlier this year, astronomers in Hawaii discovered that the near-Earth asteroid had been orbiting the sun unnoticed.
“I would say it’s probably not a huge deal. It’s just interesting; it’s a new discovery that we’ve actually made of these quasi-moons and quasi-satellites,” said Bennett.
Bennett said there have been six discoveries like this before. Most recently, last year, Earth had a second moon for about two months around this same time.
He may say it’s not a huge deal, but other space lovers say otherwise.
“There’s nothing more spacey than near-Earth asteroids, and I’ve been passionate about them and trying to inform any audience that I have willing to listen,” said Ken Ruffin, president of the National Space Society of North Texas.
His love for this subject led him to give his new company the name of his favorite near-Earth asteroid.
“The name of the asteroid is Didymos. The name of the company is Didymos Consulting,” said Ruffin.
Earlier this month, this quasi-moon was the topic he presented at his monthly meeting.
“There’s about 40,000 of them that we have found. We believe there’s a million. We’ve only found 4%. That is an extremely risky situation,” said Ruffin.
Risse also shared with the public about the asteroid.
“They often ask us, like, hey, can you show it, and I’ll be like, I wish I could, unfortunately, it’s so tiny especially with our current modern-day telescope,” said Risse.
She said there are no concerns or threats with this recently discovered asteroid because of its distance and how it’s not gravitationally bound to Earth at all.
“I kinda think it’s really great that this is something that we’re paying attention to,” said Bennett.
Experts say the quasi-moon is expected to stick around for about another 60 years.
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