WATCH: Earth picked up a ‘quasi-moon hitch-hiker’
While asteroids have been made into the harbingers of death and destruction in Hollywood films, it seems not all of them are all that bad. Scientists recently discovered an asteroid distantly orbiting Earth while it follows its own orbit around the sun.
According to a NASA report, this asteroid, dubbed 2016 HO3, has been classified as a ‘quasi’ moon due to its distant and elliptical orbit around the Earth. This hunk of rock measures around 120 to 300 feet across, which is rather small compared to the moon. It’s estimated that it started orbiting Earth around a hundred years ago and plans to stick around for a few centuries more.
Scientists say that its orbit never gets close to around 38 times the distance of the moon, while its farthest point is around 100 times the distance of the moon. The asteroid poses no imminent threat of causing a Hollywood-style catastrophe so doomsday preppers can rest easy.
It would seem that the asteroid ‘hitch-hiked’ into Earth’s gravity well while on its way towards the sun and has been stuck there since, bobbing close to the sun only to be pulled back again by the Earth.
Since 2016 HO3 is still a fairly new discovery, the current designation is fine. But seeing if it’s going to be a neighbor for a while, a proper name would be better than a serial number. Maybe “Asteroid George.” Alfred Bayle
