New observations show that a celestial object tracking Earth’s orbit about 9 miles (14.5 km) from the planet is a fragment of the Moon. Astronomers say that the fragment was probably thrown into space after an ancient lunar collision. The asteroid, named Kamo’Oleva, is about the size of a Ferris wheel, but much fainter than the faintest star that can be seen with the naked eye. The asteroid was discovered in 2016 but not much was known about it until now. Astronomers needed the most powerful telescopes to see it in detail.
Quasi-satellites like Kamoaleva travel with a planet in similar orbits around the Sun. There are five of them on Earth, including Kamoaleva. Benjamin Sharkey and Vishnu Reddy at the University of Arizona led a team to examine the spectrum of light reflected from Kamo’Olewa, using the Large Binocular Telescope on Mount Graham in the US. They missed the opportunity in April 2020 as the telescope was closed during the pandemic. But he has got success this year.
They found that the spectrum of reflected light matches that of lunar rocks of nasa Apollo mission. This suggested that the asteroid originated from the Moon. The researchers published their findings in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment
“This spring, we got much-needed follow-up observations and went, ‘Wow this is real,'” said Ben Sharkey, a PhD student at the University of Arizona and lead author of the paper, told The Guardian,
Researchers aren’t sure what threw the asteroid into space, but they said the violent event may have occurred between 500 and 100,000 years ago. “While not 100 percent conclusive, the team has made a strong case that Kamo’Olewa may in fact be a collisional fragment from such a violent event,” Professor Stephen Lowry, an astronomer at the University of Kent, told the publication.
The study also used data from the Lowell Discovery Telescope in Flagstaff, Arizona, US.
,