How three? Well, we have a new Moon, and it’s been with us for a while, you’re sure wondering how come I haven’t seen it? Well, this new moon is an asteroid called 2022 NX1, it was thought that it would reach the earth directly and burn up in the atmosphere, however that did not happen.
2022 NX1, It was discovered last year by amateur astronomers, from an observatory in Hakos, Namibia, from there data was sent to the Gran Telescopio Canarias, which analyzed it with spectrography and confirmed its existence.
According to the magazine Astronomy & Astrophysics, the team dismissed the rumors that it was an artificial object, such as space junk or debris from the Moon, the team in charge said that these types of orbits are horseshoe-type, in other words, These types of orbits are coorbital, in which two orbiting objects intertwine, this makes the other appear to draw a horseshoe from the perspective of one.
According to the calculations of the astronomers who have been observing this object, certain points of gravity pushed 2022 NX1 out of its normal orbit, making it a temporary mini Moon for our blue planet, however these same points may be the ones that push it out of our orbit or push it to earth.
Our brand new Moon is a miniature, measuring between five and fifteen meters, somewhat smaller than other asteroids that have entered orbit and burned up, resulting in a spectacle known as a bolide.
A few years ago it was very rare to talk about Minimoons or natural satellites, the reason for this is very simple, before it was not observed in such detail, today it is much easier to observe thanks to technology, it also helps that we have more eyes pointing at the space, which exponentially increases finding objects that we did not distinguish before.
For example, our Miniluna 2022 NX1 had already been orbiting us for more than thirty years without our realizing it. Also, it seems that small events such as NEAs and NEOs are captured quite frequently, for example, in 2006 we also had a temporary Minimoon called RH120.
Now our new Moon will accompany us for a while, more or less until 2077, and although it will not be as long as our other Moon, it is possible that we will see its end because one of its options is to transform into a fireball that will be consumed in our planet or shoot out of our solar orbit, in any way as Franco de Vita’s song says “we are three”.
