The “second moon” of the Earth turned out to be part of the real Moon, which was blown away by the wind

• Its characteristics match those of the Giordano Bruno crater on the hidden side of the moon.

• Until now, it was believed that it originated from the Main Asteroid Belt.

Asteroid Kamoaleva, known as “Earth’s second moon,” appears to have originated from the Moon itself, according to a recent study.

A piece of Giordano Bruno. Although Kamoaleva was thought to be a Main Belt object, like most near-Earth asteroids, a study published in the journal Nature Astronomy suggests that it is actually a fragment of the Moon from the Giordano Bruno crater, on a face hidden from the satellite. .

The study suggests that the object was ejected between 1 and 10 million years ago, when the meteorite created a lunar crater with a diameter of 22 km. The impact was strong enough to throw large fragments into a heliocentric orbit.

Lots of tips. First, astronomers made spectroscopic observations of Kamo’oaleva, which revealed matches with lunar silicates destroyed by space weather.

On the other hand, they carried out numerical simulations that proved that its physical and orbital properties are compatible with a crater with a diameter of 10-20 km, formed several million years ago.

Our companion. Officially named 2016 HO3, Kamo’o’aleva was discovered in 2016 by Pan-STARRS, a collection of telescopes in Hawaii designed to track near-Earth asteroids, of which more than 250,000 are already known.

Kamoaleva means “oscillating celestial object” in Hawaiian. Its diameter ranges from 40 to 100 meters, and it is classified as a quasi-satellite of the Earth, as it has been moving in sync with our planet for almost a century.

We are waiting for Tianwen-2. Although it poses no threat to Earth, China’s Tianwen-2 probe will visit Kamoaleva next year with the aim of returning samples and learning more about their origins.

It will be the first mission to collect samples from a mini-moon and a precursor to the Mars sample collection mission with which China wants to overtake the United States in its particular space race.

Image | POT

In Hatak | The Moon has a son: its diameter is 40 meters and it follows us at a distance of 14.5 million kilometers.