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...the item is now believed to be a rocket booster from NASA’s Surveyor 2 mission which crash landed on the Moon in 1966... Of course, there’s still a chance that 2020 SO is actually an asteroid, in which case it would be considered a minimoon while in direct orbit around the Earth. However, an old rocket booster finding would merely be considered ‘space junk’ and join the 57,000-plus pieces of human debris currently being tracked by various entities. One astronomer’s space ‘trash’ is a vintage space collector’s treasure? You decide. You can watch more on NASA’s Surveyor missions below:...

Instead of a cosmic rock, the newly discovered object appears to be an old rocket from a failed moon-landing mission 54 years ago that's finally making its way back home, according to NASA's leading asteroid expert. Observations should help nail its identity. 2020 SO, as it is formally known, is actually the Centaur upper rocket stage that successfully propelled NASA's Surveyor 2 lander to the moon in 1966 before it was discarded. The lander ended up crashing into the moon after one of its thrusters failed to ignite on the way there. The rocket, meanwhile, swept past the moon and...

The object, dubbed 2020 SO by astronomers, will come within "just" 31,605 miles of our planet at 3:50 a.m. ET on December 1, according to NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS.) This is an "extremely close," albeit safe, approach... The object, which is estimated to measure between 15-33 feet across, was discovered by the Pan-STARRS survey based in Maui, Hawaii, on September 17, 2020. This find was confirmed two days later by the Minor Planet Center, which is responsible for the designation of minor bodies in the solar system. Initial observations suggested that the object was an asteroid....

A mysterious object temporarily orbiting Earth is a 54-year-old rocket, not an asteroid after all, astronomers confirmed Wednesday. Observations by a telescope in Hawaii clinched its identity, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The object was classified as an asteroid after its discovery in September. But NASA’s top asteroid expert, Paul Chodas, quickly suspected it was the Centaur upper rocket stage from Surveyor 2, a failed 1966 moon-landing mission. Size estimates had put it in the range of the old Centaur, which was about 32 feet (10 meters) long and 10 feet (3 meters) in diameter. Chodas...

Astronomers first noticed the object now known as 2020 SO last September. Orbit models quickly showed that both the low speed and trajectory of the approaching object were unusual. The models showed that Earth would capture this object – temporarily – as a new mini-moon. And that’s what happened. 2020 SO has been orbiting Earth since November 8. Following further analysis of its motion – and a very close approach of the object (just 30,000 miles, 50,000 km or 0.13 lunar-distances) on December 1 – NASA was able to confirm that the object is a relic of the early Space...

A strange space object approaching Earth is about to get captured by our gravity and become a new, temporary “mini-moon.” The object, which is dubbed 2020 SO, could be an asteroid. Or it could be part of the Surveyor 2, a robotic spacecraft launched to the moon on Sept. 20, 1966, according to the science and nature website EarthSky.org Traveling at the extremely-slow-for-space speed of 1,880 miles per hour, the object was seen last week by astronomers in Hawaii, and it’s on course to be captured by Earth from October 2020 until around May 2021, according to EarthSky. Astronomers here...

A visiting mini-moon is circling Earth, according to astronomers who discovered the cosmic squatter in our planet's orbit.The tiny asteroid, dubbed 2020 CD3, was spotted by astronomers in Tucson, Arizona, on Feb. 15. "BIG NEWS," Kacper Wierzchos, a researcher with the Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Lab, tweeted Tuesday. "Earth has a new temporarily captured object/Possible mini-moon called 2020 CD3. On the night of Feb. 15, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Teddy Pruyne and I found a 20th magnitude object."Wierzchos said that the object measures about 6 feet to 11 feet across and that...

Such objects circle the planet rather than plunge through the atmosphere and into the ground—at least for a time. It is believed most such objects do not circle the Earth for very long—they eventually succumb to gravity and crash through the atmosphere, or are instead flung back into space. As the researchers also note, to date only one such object has ever been recorded circling the Earth—an object named 2006 RH120 was spotted back in 2006 circling the planet—it did so for approximately 11 months before it escaped the Earth's gravity and made its way back into space. Also, only...

Astronomers have discovered a new “quasi” moon orbiting Earth. 2016 HO3, as the asteroid is called, is at least 40 meters across and could be larger, up to 100 meters, researchers say, but it’s too far from Earth to qualify as a true satellite or mini-moon. "Since 2016 HO3 loops around our planet, but never ventures very far away as we both go around the sun, we refer to it as a quasi-satellite of Earth," said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object (NEO) Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "One other asteroid -- 2003...

In April of 2016, astronomers became aware of a distant object that appeared to be orbiting the Sun, but was also passing close enough to Earth that it could be periodically viewed using the most powerful telescopes. Since then, there has been ample speculation as to what this “Temporary Moon” could be... ... “While HO3 is close to the Earth, its small size – possibly not larger than 100 feet – makes it challenging target to study. Our observations show that HO3 rotates once every 28 minutes and is made of materials similar to asteroids.” ... Reddy and his colleagues...