Attention stargazers!!! Earth’s second moon to be visible from September 29. How to catch a glimpse

This autumn Earth will offer a surprise for all. A small asteroid is going to be captured by Earth’s gravitational pull and temporarily become a “mini-moon”. The celestial body will orbit the planet for about two months between September 29 and November 25 before escaping again. 

The development has captured the attention of stargazers and space enthusiasts, who want to catch a glimpse of our guest.  

However, it wouldn’t be possible to see the mini-moon with naked eyes as it consists of a small dull rock. To catch a glimpse, one needs the help of professional equipment as binoculars or a home telescope won’t be able to spot it properly. 

According to astronomer Dr Jennifer Millard, host of the Awesome Astronomy podcast, professional telescopes will be able to pick up the mini-moon. “So, you’ll be able to look out for lots of wonderful pictures online of this little dot moving past the stars at great speed,” Millard told BBC. 

The asteroid, which scientists refer to as 2024 PT5, hails from the Arjuna asteroid belt, which contains rocks that follow an orbit quite similar to Earth’s. It was first spotted by NASA’s Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) on August 7 and is around 33 feet wide.  

“It’s not going to complete a full revolution of our planet, it's just going to kind of have its orbit altered, just twisted slightly by our planet, and then it'll continue on its merry way,” Millard said. 

Occasionally, some of these asteroids get relatively close, getting as near as 2.8 million miles (4.5 million km) from our planet. 

According to the researchers involved in the study, if an asteroid like this is moving at a relatively slow speed of around 2,200mph (3,540km/h), Earth’s gravitational field can exert a strong influence, enough to trap it temporarily. 

Which is exactly what’s about to happen this weekend and small asteroid will spend about two months orbiting Earth. 

Mini-moons have been spotted before, and it's thought many more are likely to have gone unnoticed. Some even come back for repeat visits, the 2022 NX1 asteroid became a mini-moon in 1981 and again in 2022. 

So if you it miss it, fret not. As per scientists, 2024 PT5 will return to Earth’s orbit again in 2055. 

“This story highlights just how busy our solar system is and how much there is out there that we haven't discovered because this asteroid was only discovered this year,” Millard added.