JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Earth has a new visitor in space. It's an asteroid named 2024 PT5.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Catchy. As the asteroid was whizzing by on its path around the sun, the Earth's gravity disrupted it, and the space rock and the Earth are now in a fleeting gravitational dance.
SUMMERS: Scientists spotted the space rock last month using a telescope in South Africa. That telescope is part of the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System. And while that name sounds pretty dire, there's no need to worry. This asteroid is not on a collision course with Earth.
SHAPIRO: Writing this month in the journal Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society, scientists estimate the asteroid is 33 feet long - about the size of a bus. And sorry, backyard astronomers - it'll be too small and dim to see with amateur telescopes.
SUMMERS: And while the space rock has picked up the nickname of a mini moon, tracing a temporary arc around the Earth, there's some disagreement whether it truly lives up to that title because it won't make a full orbit around our planet before departing again in the coming months to continue its journey around the sun. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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