Astronomers identify moon’s small chunk tracking Earth’s orbit around Sun

A small chunk of moon seems to be tracking the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, as per astronomers.

Although relatively little known till now, the asteroid, which is named Kamo`oalewa, was discovered in 2016.

According to the new observations, it could be a fragment from the moon, which was thrown into space by a collision several years ago.

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One of Earth’s quasi-satellites, Kamo`oalewa belongs to a category of asteroid that orbits the Sun. It also remains relatively close to the planet, 9m miles away in this case.

It has the size of a ferris wheel. It is also about 4m times fainter than the faintest star, which can be seen with the naked eye.

So, to make its clear observations, powerful telescopes are needed.

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Astronomers have found that the spectrum of reflected light from Kamo`oalewa gets closely matched with lunar rocks from Apollo missions of NASA. It suggests that it originated from the moon. The astronomers were able to identify it with the help of large binocular telescope on Mount Graham in southern Arizona.

The findings of the study were published in the ‘Nature Communications Earth and Environment’ journal.

(With inputs from agencies)