A team of astronomers has found a new clue that a recently discovered near-Earth asteroid, Kamo’oalewa, might be a chunk of the moon. They hypothesized that the asteroid was ejected from the lunar surface during a meteorite strike—and they found that a rare pathway could have allowed Kamo’oalewa to get into orbit around the sun while remaining close to the orbits of the Earth and the moon.
A team of astronomers has found a new clue that a recently discovered near-Earth asteroid, Kamo’oalewa, might be a chunk of the moon. They hypothesized that the asteroid was ejected from the lunar surface during a meteorite strike—and they found that a rare pathway could have allowed Kamo’oalewa to get into orbit around the sun while remaining close to the orbits of the Earth and the moon.
The research team details their findings in the Oct. 23 issue of the journal Communications Earth & Environment. Kamo’oalewa has been the object of several astronomy studies in recent years. As a result, a Chinese mission launching in 2025 is set to land on the asteroid and return samples to Earth.
« Elements from this space body can give us information about the formation of the Earth’s moon and improve our knowledge of near-Earth asteroids, » said Aaron Rosengren, a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California San Diego and one of the paper’s senior authors.
So far, only distant asteroids from beyond the orbit of Mars were considered a source of near-Earth asteroids, said Renu Malhotra, a planetary sciences professor at The University of Arizona and also a senior author of the paper.
