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Topics: Space, World News, Moon, Science
Lucy Devine
Scientists have discovered that Earth could have at least six minimoons that we never knew existed.
A minimoon is a small asteroid or rock that gets temporarily captured by Earth's gravity.
And now, new research has revealed that at any given time, 'moon fragments' may orbit the Earth.
Published in the journal Icarus, the study explained how it's all down to different objects colliding with the moon, which in turn release moon fragments.
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Most fragments will be pulled into orbit around the sun, but some of them end up orbiting around Earth before returning to orbit around the sun, the study found.
Robert Jedicke, researcher at the University of Hawaii told Space.com: "[It's] kind of like a square dance, where partners change regularly and sometimes leave the dance floor for a while."
During the study, Jedicke and his team set out to calculate how many lunar minimoons exist, and found that around a fifth of the particles by Earth could become minimoons.
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The team's findings suggest that approximately 6.5 minimoons could be circling Earth at any given time, with each usually in the planet's orbit for around nine months before being replaced with another.
However Jedicke explained it's incredibly difficult to pinpoint the overall number of minimoons.
"If there were that many [temporarily bound objects], the telescopic surveys would probably detect more of them," he said. "So the nominal prediction is almost certainly wrong. That's science."
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They're also incredibly difficult to detect, due to their size and speed.
"Detecting objects in that size range means they have to be close so they are bright, but if they are close, it means they also appear to be moving quickly across the sky," Jedicke said.
"It is incredible that modern telescopic surveys have the ability to detect such small objects up to millions of kilometers away."
Last year, a 'second moon', named 2024-PT5, was captured by Earth's gravity.
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Speaking about the incredible development to Space, Professor Carlos de la Fuente Marcos said: "The object that is going to pay us a visit belongs to the Arjuna asteroid belt, a secondary asteroid belt made of space rocks that follow orbits very similar to that of Earth at an average distance to the sun of about 93 million miles [150 million kilometers].
"Objects in the Arjuna asteroid belt are part of the near-Earth object population of asteroids and comets."
The second moon isn't predicted to return into Earth's orbit again until 2055.