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Look in the sky: is it a bird, is it an airplane, is it … space junk?
A mysterious space object that was captured from Earth’s orbit and is widely believed to be a rocket since the 1960s is now visible to sky watchers as it approaches the planet.
Known as the 2020 SO, the object is believed to be part of a Centaur rocket from the Surveyor 2 probe, NASA said in November, though this has not been confirmed.
This photograph from 1964 shows a Centaur rocket in the upper stage before being coupled to an Atlas booster. A similar centaur was used during the launch of Surveyor 2 two years later. Credits: NASA
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The Virtual Telescope Project broadcasts the overflight of the new terrestrial satellite in live streaming. It is expected to have its brush closest to our planet when 2020 SO arrives within 50,000 kilometers (31,000 miles) of Earth on December 1, VTP founder Gianluca Masi wrote on the project’s website.
NASA has released a video of the SO 2020 looped orbits around the Earth.
This flyby will allow astronomers to determine if it is actually part of the Centaur upper stage rocket that lifted Surveyor 2 or something else.
“The near-Earth 2020 SO object, discovered by the Pan-STARRS investigation on September 17, 2020 and announced two days later by the Minor Planet Center, has an estimated diameter of between 4.5 and 10 meters (source: Nasa / JPL) “, Masi added. “We are not sure if it is an asteroid (ie a natural body), as it could be the propulsion rocket of the NASA Surveyor 2 mission, dating back to 1966. Furthermore, from 8 November 2020 to March 2021, it will be a satellite temporary of our home planet “.
Regardless of whether 2020 SO is artificial or an asteroid, its orbit around the sun is very similar to Earth, leading NASA to believe that it is probably indeed a part of Surveyor 2, launched towards the moon in 1966.
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“One of the possible paths for 2020 SO brought the object very close to the Earth and the Moon in late September 1966,” Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, said in a November statement. “It was like a eureka moment where a quick check of the launch dates of the lunar missions showed a match with the Surveyor 2 mission.”
Unfortunately, Surveyor 2 never completed its journey, crashing to the lunar surface on September 23, 1966. However, the Centaur booster “sailed past the Moon and disappeared in an unknown orbit around the Sun,” added NASA. .
2020 SO initially “slipped slowly” into Earth’s Hill sphere on November 8, 2020, and will remain there for approximately four months before returning to orbit around the sun in March 2021.
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