NASA finds ‘Quasi-moon’ orbiting around Earth

It looks like our Moon may have a companion, as NASA has revealed a tiny asteroid buzzing in an orbit around Earth, like a small pilot fish swimming near a Great White shark.

Dubbed 2016 HO3, the asteroid orbits the Sun in concert with our planet, and as it does, the asteroid also circles around Earth. Scientists have yet to confirm an official size but NASA estimated it at somewhere between 120 feet and 300 feet across.

“Since 2016 HO3 loops around our planet, but never ventures very far away as we both go around the sun, we refer to it as a quasi-satellite of Earth,” Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object (NEO) Studies, said in a news release. “One other asteroid — 2003 YN107 — followed a similar orbital pattern for a while over 10 years ago, but it has since departed our vicinity.

“This new asteroid is much more locked onto us,” Chodas added. “Our calculations indicate 2016 HO3 has been a stable quasi-satellite of Earth for almost a century, and it will continue to follow this pattern as Earth’s companion for centuries to come.”

A new companion in orbit around Earth

In its annual journey around the Sun, 2016 HO3 spends approximately one half of the time nearer to the sun than our planet and moves in front of earth, and around 50 percent the time farther away, causing it to get behind. Its orbit is also set at an angle a little, causing it to dip up and down each year as it passes through Earth’s orbital plane. In essence, this small asteroid is trapped in a game of leap frog with Earth that NASA said will persist for hundreds of years.

The asteroid’s orbit was also found to twist slightly over the course of multiple decades.

“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,” Chodas said. “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.”

Incidentally, our cosmic dance partner isn’t expected to be a threat to life here on Earth.

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Image credit: NASA JPL

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