Remember the Mini-Moon? Turns Out It Was Actually a Chunk of Our Moon.

So much newsworthy stuff happens nowadays that it’s hard to remember every story that captivated us even just a few months ago. Hopefully, some of you remember the mini-moon that was captured by the Earth’s gravity this past 2024.

It was discovered on August 7 and hung around from September 29 to November 25. It was only 33 feet in diameter, and as such, was almost impossible for even some of the Earth’s most powerful telescopes to observe, but it was there.

Scientists speculated that this mini-moon might have been a lingering remnant of our actual moon that broke off, perhaps launched into space after an asteroid strike. Scientists have been studying it ever since to figure out its origins. It seems like the initial speculation was correct—it’s a tiny chunk of our own moon that makes an occasional guest appearance in our skies.

Long Live the 2024 Mini-Moon

Most asteroids that approach the Earth shake loose from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. But the so-called mini-moon, whose government name was 2024 PT5, was very likely a part of our moon at some point, says astronomer Teddy Kareta from the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, who published his mini-moon research in the scientific journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The evidence, he explains, is in the presence of silicate materials on the mini-moon, a material commonly found on the big moon. When the mini-moon was first discovered, researchers found it odd that it didn’t reflect light the way asteroids usually do. The only logical explanation is that it wasn’t made from the same stuff as the average asteroid, because it wasn’t the average asteroid—it was moon. Pure, uncut moon.

Well, technically, very cut, because it had to have been dislodged by something at some point; likely an asteroid impact. Judging by the space weathering on the mini-moon, meaning the weathering that occurs on an object exposed to the harshness of space, it likely got dislodged fairly recently, in astrological terms. Maybe only a few thousand years ago, even.

The mini-moon won’t show up in our skies again until 2055, giving us a whole 30 years to develop a better telescope so we can more easily observe the mini-moon the next time it swings around.