The asteroid, approximately 10 meters wide, was discovered through the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System.
Researchers found that its size, speed, and trajectory are suitable for it to be caught by Earth’s gravitational field for 53 days. During this time, it will orbit Earth before resuming its path through the solar system.
“2024 PT5 will circle the Earth one time before it escapes back into space,” the researchers stated in their paper. This event is known as a “temporarily captured flyby,” where an asteroid enters Earth’s gravity but does not make multiple orbits.
2024 PT5 is a near-Earth object roughly 11 meters (36 ft) in diameter discovered by ATLAS South Africa, Sutherland on August 7, 2024, the day before approaching Earth at 568,500 km (353,200 mi).
The object orbits the Sun but makes slow close approaches to the Earth–Moon system.
