Recently
astronomers say that an object is coming toward planet or approaching planet
earth but with low speed which astronomers suspected to be not an asteroid but
a thing or a space junk. They suspected it to be a rocket booster from the 1966
space mission of Surveyor 2 that has lost contact then and now coming home.
Once it
enters the earth’s orbit it will become as they say “mini moon”. The object
will be on October 2020 up to May 2021 as the news said. They name it as 2020
SO.
“Astronomers believe the object may actually be a
piece of human-made space junk that's, well, returning home…… Some scientists think the
object may be what's left of a mission that launched for the moon more than 50
years ago. NASA's Surveyor 2 spacecraft launched atop an Atlas LV-3C
Centaur-D on September 20, 1966. Unfortunately, NASA lost contact with the
craft three days later when a thruster failed to start, sending the mission on
a tailspin into the lunar surface.” (Popular Mechanics)
“The working theory is that 2020 SO may actually be
the Centaur stage of the United Launch Alliance rocket that propelled Surveyor
2 out of Earth's orbit. The object's size, which researchers have determined to
be roughly between 21 and 46 feet long, is a relatively close match for the
rocket's dimensions (approximately 41 feet). It's also moving at a much slower
clip than what is expected of a natural asteroid, or even rocks that have been
ejected from the lunar surface.”(Popular Mechanics)
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