A Piece of Moon Broke Off, And It’s Very Close to Earth Now

Bright Side

Here’s something wild: a chunk of the Moon might’ve broken off, and it’s hanging out closer to Earth than you’d think! 🌙 Scientists believe this mysterious space rock, called Kamo’oalewa, could be a piece of our Moon that got knocked loose ages ago, maybe from an asteroid impact. Right now, it’s orbiting the Sun in a pattern that keeps it pretty close to Earth—kind of like a cosmic dance partner! 💫 It’s so small, though, that spotting it is super tricky. Researchers are still trying to figure out how exactly it got there and if it’s really part of the Moon.  Credit: Giordano Bruno Crater: By NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University, https://science.nasa.gov/resource/giordano-bruno-crater/ Giordano Bruno crater rays: By James Stuby, NASA, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47556008 JPLraw / YouTube J002e3f orbit: By J002E3, NASA/Paul Chodas & Ron Baalke - https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/doc/j002e3/, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13312470 CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0: Asteroid 1a Game Model: By Game Piggd/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/oUMVP Earth: By denis_cliofas/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/6VCKF Burj Khalifa Dubai: By SDC PERFORMANCE/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/6YynW 54509-YORP asteroid, potential Earth impactor: By SebastianSosnowski/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/owXTM Animation is created by Bright Side.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV   Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00An asteroid broke off the moon, and now it's super close to Earth. Does it pose a danger to us?

00:05Kama'oale'a, also known as

00:082016 HO3, spins super quickly as it orbits near our planet. Let's call it HO3 for short.

00:17Astronomers found it on April 27, 2016.

00:21Compared to other asteroids, it's tiny. On Earth though,

00:25it would be the size of a small building, or about half the size of the London Eye Ferris wheel.

00:30They discovered it in Hawaii, and its name roughly translates to a fragment of something that seems to wobble.

00:37After some study, they realized that this asteroid might be a chunk of the moon that got blasted into space.

00:44There's a part of the moon called Giordano Bruno Crater,

00:48named after an Italian philosopher, that guy who had to pay quite the price for his ideas.

00:53If you look at it from space, Giordano Bruno stands out because it's surrounded by some rays of material.

01:00They're super huge, stretching over 93 miles, and are still bright. This means that an enormous boom once happened there.

01:08There's an interesting story about this. In 1178, five monks were traveling in Canterbury, England.

01:15Suddenly, they saw something strange happening on the moon.

01:18They said it looked like the moon was splitting with flames and sparks.

01:21Then, there was a darkening that spread all across the lunar surface.

01:26In the 20th century,

01:28scientists found these records, and thought that these monks saw the formation of the Giordano Bruno Crater.

01:33But later, it turned out that the crater is about 4 million years old.

01:38And thank the stars, because such a massive impact, if it really happened in the 12th century,

01:43would have gone crazy on our planet. It would have caused a huge meteor storm on Earth.

01:48In any case, our HO3 is most likely a piece of the moon that broke off during that impact 4 million years ago.

01:56Luckily, there's no need to panic about it. When astronomers spotted this sudden moon piece,

02:00they quickly tracked its orbit. Turns out, it won't collide with us any time soon.

02:05It's going to be our quasi-satellite for at least 300 more years.

02:10Meaning, it'll follow a path around the Sun that keeps it close to Earth without colliding.

02:15Its orbit is wild, though.

02:17It seems to be constantly looping around our planet in some pretty unique loops, moving closer and going away, up and down.

02:25And then, somewhere in the 24th century, it will go even more crazy, switching to a horseshoe orbit, slowly going away from us.

02:34Could HO3 collide with us someday?

02:37Maybe. But that would happen over millions of years, when it would leave its current orbit and collide with Earth,

02:44Venus, or even the Sun itself. Or maybe entirely ejected from the solar system.

02:49Even though it's one of the closest asteroids ever discovered, it's also one of the smallest and most stable ones.

02:56This discovery also opens up some exciting ideas about life in the universe. We see that rocks can travel between celestial bodies.

03:05There is a theory that life could have been spread all across the universe by traveling on these rocks, like on some space

03:12Ubers, or at least the building blocks of life, like carbon.

03:16Maybe life even hitchhiked to our planet on rocks from Mars.

03:20HO3 probably doesn't carry any life, but the fact that it can travel for millions of years, carrying stuff on it and feeling fine,

03:28supports this theory.

03:30Astronomers want to send something to investigate HO3.

03:34Back in 2017, a group of students gave an idea of using a spacecraft for it.

03:39The China National Space Administration wants to send a robotic probe to HO3, somewhere in 2025.

03:47The robot should fly there, collect samples, and bring them back to Earth for study.

03:53Unfortunately, you can't see this asteroid in the sky with the naked eye. Its size is about 130 to

04:01330 feet in diameter, so it would be too tiny and dim to see without a super powerful telescope.

04:08But, there is an asteroid that you'll be able to see, and it will be insane.

04:14In 2029, a large asteroid will pass so close to Earth that it will be visible to the naked eye.

04:20Make sure not to miss it, because this is a once-in-a-thousand-year event.

04:25The asteroid is known as

04:272004 MN4, or Apophis for short.

04:31It's much bigger than HO3, about a thousand two hundred ten feet wide.

04:36This will be the closest asteroid passage ever.

04:40This one actually caused some panic back in December 2004.

04:44All because there was a 2.7% chance that it could hit Earth in 2029.

04:50People were horrified. Even the name Apophis is inspired by an evil serpent from ancient Egyptian mythology.

04:58A huge monster that fought Ra and always tried to swallow the Sun and destroy the planet.

05:04Luckily, when scientists got more data,

05:07they realized that it would pass pretty close to us in 2029, and we'd be able to see it in the sky.

05:12But then, it will just fly away like a chill asteroid.

05:17There was another worry though.

05:19That during its close pass, Apophis might travel through something called a gravitational keyhole.

05:27Basically, that it could travel through a specific narrow region of space which would accidentally alter its orbit.

05:33And then it would make an epic comeback in 2036, like the planet from the movie Melancholia.

05:40However, after some calculations, scientists ruled out this possibility as well.

05:46Apophis will still come quite close to us in 2036,

05:49but it will be about as far away as Venus is when it overtakes Earth.

05:53And then, Apophis and Earth will just go their own separate ways.

05:58On average, an asteroid the size of Apophis is only expected to hit Earth once every 80,000 years.

06:05And if it did hit us, it would completely destroy a huge area, causing earthquakes and tsunamis all around the world.

06:12But it wouldn't cause an apocalypse or anything like that.

06:16You'd only be able to see Apophis from Europe, Africa, and Western Asia.

06:20So if you want to see it, you might need to travel.

06:24The asteroid will look like a fast-moving star in the night sky, shining bright enough to be seen without any special equipment.

06:31It would be easy to spot at night, though city lights might make it harder to see.

06:37Now, can you imagine that these are not the only guys hanging nearby?

06:42Both HO3 and Apophis are part of the so-called Apollo orbit asteroids.

06:47These are the asteroids with orbits going around Earth, an entire group of dangerous fellas.

06:54Since they cross Earth's orbit, they have the potential to come close to or even collide with our planet.

07:00The first asteroid of this group to be discovered was 1862 Apollo, named after the Greek deity of the Sun.

07:07It was first discovered in 1932, and the group was named after it.

07:13This one was even bigger, almost a mile in size. In fact, it's so huge that it even has its own tiny moon.

07:22Apollo crosses orbits of not just Earth, but also Venus and Mars.

07:28Fun fact, even though it was the first one of its kind, telescopes accidentally lost it out of view for over 40 years.

07:36So scientists went, oh, well, let's just keep the count of things we can see.

07:40When Apollo was rediscovered in 1973, it wasn't the first asteroid on the list and got a big number in its name.

07:49Apollo will fly near us during the next hundreds of years. In 2075, it will be somewhere around Venus,

07:56but it should fly by as well.

07:58In any case, there's no need to worry because astronomers are keeping a close track on these guys.

08:04If we were in any immediate danger, we'd have known.

08:08In order for an asteroid to totally destroy life on our planet,

08:11it should be bigger than six miles in diameter, like the one that helped to wipe out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

08:20But these guys are so crazy rare, we'd probably live on other planets by the time they arrive on Earth.

08:30That's it for today. So hey, if you pacified your curiosity,

08:33then give the video a like and share it with your friends. Or if you want more,

08:37just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!

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