2023-05-06 14:11:00
By
Rosary3 |
A group of US astrophysicists examined the orbit of the small asteroid Kamo’oalewa and ran multiple computer simulations of possible meteoroid strikes with the lunar surface, to understand if it could have been ejected from the Moon. This asteroid reflects light in a similar way to lunar silicates.
The researchers found that a small fraction of the simulated impact conditions produce results that are consistent with the dynamic behavior of the asteroid. They also indicated that this gives credibility to the hypothesis that Kamo’oalewa could have been the result of an ejection from our natural satellite.
The rock has a diameter of just 58 meters and was discovered in 2016 using the PanSTARRS telescope in Hawaii. Astronomers named it Kamo’oalewa, a Hawaiian word meaning “oscillating celestial fragment.”
Each April, Kamo’oalewa comes as close to our planet as close to 14.4 million kilometers (almost 40 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon). It also shows unusual behavior in that its orbit shifts every hundreds of years from a quasi-satellite to a horseshoe conformation.
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