A near-earth asteroid (NEA) called Kamo’oalewa is orbiting us as a “minimoon” and scientists said Friday that they may know its origin story.
The Kamo’oalewa asteroid orbits in time with Earth and may just be a shattered piece of our regular moon, according to a study published in the journal Nature Astronomy. The research argues that Kamo’oalewa was likely flung into our immediate cosmos when a different mile-wide asteroid collided with our moon, creating the Giordano Bruno crater.
The surface of Kamo’oalewa reflects light in the same way as weathered lunar rocks. Its size, spin and age also match our moon and the enormous crater on the far side of the moon.
The lunar surface is marked by countless craters. Linking a distant asteroid and a specific crater is truly amazing! It’s like finding out which tree a fallen leaf on the ground came from in a vast forest.
