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A fast - whirl asteroid that orbit in prison term with Earthmay be a perverse clod of the moon . Now , scientist think they live just which lunar volcanic crater it come from .
A novel study , published April 19 in the journalNature Astronomy , finds that the skinny - Earthasteroid469219 Kamo’oalewa may have been fling into space when a statute mile - wide ( 1.6 kilometers ) space rock off the Sun Myung Moon , create the Giordano Bruno volcanic crater .
Giordano Bruno crater (the white, rayed crater on the right) may be the source of the peculiar near-Earth asteroid 469219 Kamo’oalewa.
Kamo’oalewa ’s light reflectance matches that of weathered lunar stone , and its size , years and whirl all match up with the 13.6 - mile - broad ( 22 klick ) crater , which sits on the far side of the synodic month , the study researchers reported .
Chinaplans to launch a sample - restoration mission to the asteroid in 2025 . yell Tianwen-2 , the mission will return pieces of Kamo’oalewa about 2.5 years later , according to Live Science ’s sister siteSpace.com .
" The possibility of a lunar - derived origin bring unexpected intrigue to the [ Tianwen-2 ] mission and presents additional technical challenge for the sample distribution return,“Bin Cheng , a planetary scientist at Tsinghua University and a co - generator of the new study , toldScience .
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Kamo’oalewa was find out in 2016 by researchers at Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii . It has a diameter of about 100 to 200 feet ( approximately 30 to 60 meters , or about the size of it of a large Ferris bicycle ) and twirl at a rapid clip of one rotation every 28 minutes . The asteroid orbits the sun in a similar course to Earth , sometimes come near within 10 million miles ( 16 million km ) .
Due to their proximity to Earth , minimoons are prime candidates for exploration . Now , some scientist want to use these tiny satellite topush human beings further into the cosmos .
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Cheng and his co-worker first calculated what size object and what speed of impingement would be necessary to eject a fragment like Kamo’oalewa from the lunar surface , as well as what sizing crater would be leave behind . They count on out that the asteroid could have resulted from a 45 - degree wallop at about 420,000 mph ( 18 kilometre per second base ) and would have leave a 6 - to-12 - mile - encompassing ( 10 to 20 km ) crater .
There are ten-spot of thousands of craters that size on the Sun Myung Moon , but most are ancient , the research worker write in their paper . nigh - Earth asteroid usually last only about 10 million years , or at most up to 100 million years before they crash into the sun or a satellite or get cast away out of thesolar systementirely . By looking at young crater , the team constrict down the competition to a few 12 options .
The research worker focused on Giordano Bruno , which touch the requirements for both size and age . They found that the wallop that organise Giordano Bruno could have created as many as three still - extant Kamo’oalewa - similar objects . This makes Giordano Bruno crater the most likely reference of the asteroid , the researchers resolve .
" It ’s like finding out which tree a fall leaf on the priming coat come from in a vast forest , " Chengwrote on X , formerly known as Twitter .
Confirmation will add up after the Tianwen-2 missionary post brings a firearm of Kamo’oalewa back to Earth . scientist already have a sampling of what is believed to be ejecta from Giordano Bruno volcanic crater in the Luna 24 sample distribution , a number of lunar month John Rock contribute back to Earth in a 1976NASAmission . By comparing the two , researchers could avow Kamo’oalewa ’s line of descent .
