A small worldwide workforce of planetary scientists has discovered proof supporting the speculation that the near-Earth asteroid Kamo’oalewa is ejecta from the moon. Of their paper published within the journal Nature Astronomy, the group describes their data-driven fashions and what they revealed.
The asteroid Kamo’oalewa was found in 2016 as a part of a world effort to seek out asteroids that would doubtlessly affect the Earth. It was decided that the asteroid circles the sun in an orbit that’s synchronized with the Earth, making it seem as if it circles the planet. It was additionally estimated to be 40 to 100 meters throughout and it spins very quick for an asteroid.
Then, in 2021, one other workforce discovered proof suggesting that the make-up of Kamo’oalewa was much like that of rocks which have been discovered on the moon, suggesting it might have a lunar origin. To research, the researchers launched a wide-ranging examine of the asteroid and the doable locations on the moon it might need come from.
The workforce started by creating a pc mannequin to imitate the kind of collision that would have resulted in a chunk of the moon’s floor the scale of Kamo’oalewa being flung into space. In so doing they had been capable of estimate the seemingly dimension of the asteroid that may have struck the moon, and from that, the scale of the crater it will have left behind.
The researchers additionally famous that such a strike would have needed to have been pretty current, which narrowed down the crater prospects. They then in contrast samples of moon materials introduced again to Earth that had been discovered close to one prime risk—the Giordano Bruno crater. They discovered spectral similarities between the samples and the asteroid Kamo’oalewa—additionally they discovered each had bits of the mineral pyroxene in them as effectively.
The workforce then made some estimations utilizing their information and located that an asteroid colliding with the moon on the present website of the Giordano Bruno crater might have thrown off particles that made its means into space—with one chunk the scale of Kamo’oalewa. They recommend additional missions to review the moon might present extra info, probably additional cementing the concept of the Kamo’oalewa asteroid as a chunk of the moon.
Extra info:
Yifei Jiao et al, Asteroid Kamo’oalewa’s journey from the lunar Giordano Bruno crater to Earth 1:1 resonance, Nature Astronomy (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-024-02258-z
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Pc mannequin helps assist idea of asteroid Kamo’oalewa as ejecta from the moon (2024, April 22)
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