M
Mike Wehner
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- In late 2020 Earth got a new visitor in the form of what was originally thought to be a natural piece of space debris, such as a small asteroid.
- The object turned out to be a discarded rocket stage that was launched half a century ago and just happened to come back and get sucked up by Earth's gravitational pull.
- Now, as it completes its final loop of our planet, the object will soon fling itself back out into space, and isn't likely to visit our planet again.
You might have missed the news last year — you know, because of the global pandemic and whatnot — but a mysterious object was intercepted by Earth in November. When astronomers first saw it headed our way they thought it was a space rock of some sort, and while it wasn't on a collision course with our planet, it was destined to orbit Earth for at least a little while.
As it turned out, the object wasn't a space rock or comet, but a piece of manmade debris. The object, a rocket booster launched over half a century ago, was part of the Surveyor 2 mission to the Moon, and the debris has been hanging around our planet ever since. Now, with one more swoop around our world to complete, the "mini-Moon" will soon be headed back out into space, and it's unlikely that we'll come across it again.
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Earth’s latest visitor is about to leave us forever originally appeared on BGR.com on Thu, 28 Jan 2021 at 23:15:02 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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