paper<\/a> published in Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society. The discovery prompted scientists to search through archival data for earlier signs of 2025 PN7, and they found the near-Earth asteroid in images that date back to 2014.<\/p>\nThe data suggests that the space rock has been in a stable orbit for 60 years, and will remain on a similar path for another 60 years before drifting out of sync with our planet\u2019s orbit around the Sun.<\/p>\n
Meet 2025 PN7 <\/p>\n
2025-PN7 is around 62 feet (19 meters) wide, and it\u2019s between 2.8 million miles and 37.2 million miles away from Earth. It was found in the constellation Piscis Austrinus, which can be seen in Southern Hemisphere skies. The newly spotted space rock belongs to an elite group of near-Earth asteroids.<\/p>\n
Earth has only one natural satellite\u2014you may have heard of the Moon\u2014but asteroids on similar orbits to our planet are influenced by its gravity. As a result, these quasi-satellites appear to accompany Earth on its path around the Sun, without actually orbiting the planet itself. That means they aren\u2019t captured by Earth\u2019s gravity; they simply keep pace as our planet moves around its host star. Accordingly, they\u2019re more like temporary traveling companions than actual moons.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Quasi-moons are not to be confused with mini-moons. Mini-moons are temporarily captured by Earth\u2019s gravity, orbiting our planet for a short period\u2014anywhere from a few weeks to a few months\u2014before freeing themselves from the orbital tug. Last year, a small near-Earth asteroid briefly got caught by Earth\u2019s gravity, becoming the planet\u2019s mini-moon for a brief but exciting two-month stretch.<\/p>\n
Mini-moons are perhaps more common than quasi-moons. The most famous quasi-moon is Kamo\u02bboalewa, formally known as 2016 HO3. The elongated near-Earth object was discovered on April 27, 2016, and measures between 131 and 328 feet (40 to 100 meters) across. China\u2019s Tianwen-2 mission, launched in May, is designed to rendezvous with Kamo\u02bboalewa and collect samples from the quasi-moon, returning them to Earth in 2027 to probe for clues about the origin of the solar system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists have discovered a previously unknown quasi-moon that\u2019s been shadowing Earth\u2019s orbit for decades, undetected, and will likely…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":213613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[917,116890,994,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-213612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-earth","9":"tag-mini-moon","10":"tag-moon","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115176030378691387","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}