![]() ![]() That probably won’t be Kamo’oalewa’s fate, but Malhotra and Castro-Cisneros’ research shows that there are likely others out there like it somewhere. Near-Earth objects from ancient moon impacts would probably be 100 meters or smaller, Malhotra says, but those are nonetheless known as “ city killers,” dangerous enough to cause widespread destruction if they were to strike the Earth. NASA is scoping for asteroids 140 meters in diameter and larger, similar in size to the one the DART spacecraft smacked into to test deflection techniques. It means people should also consider orbits originating from the moon, not just rocks flung out of the asteroid belt. Kamo’oalewa’s lunar provenance also has implications for potentially hazardous Earth-bound asteroids that NASA and other organizations search the heavens for. It likely smashed into the trailing side of the moon, he says, and they’re now trying to pinpoint the precise crater that Kamo’oalewa launched from. “Based on the likely conditions to produce this kind of orbit, coming from the moon, that would require a crater millions of years old and tens of kilometers in size,” Castro-Cisneros says. They infer a kilometer-sized asteroid made that critical crash, and they can make inferences about the impact too. ![]() Small changes in the initial conditions of the models, such as the size of the asteroid that made the impact, where it hit the moon, and at what angle, have dramatic effects on an ejected lunar boulder’s trajectory. This cupful-or-so of space rock could shed light on the solar systems origins. Their astronomical sleuthing continues, including examining lunar craters that have remained essentially undisturbed for eons. NASAs Osiris-REx mission has successfully returned a pristine sample of asteroid back to Earth. But its orbit isn’t stable, thanks to the classic three-body problem, in which the chaotic gravitational influence of three bodies-the Earth, the sun, and Kamo’oalewa-will eventually nudge it so that it gets kicked out and flies away. When NASA smashes a spacecraft into an asteroid on Monday, people on Earth will get an. The researchers find that Kamo’oalewa has probably been hanging around for millions of years, not decades, like other objects in such orbits. NASA Update 9/26 8:08PM ET: The DART spacecraft smashed into an asteroid Original post continues below.
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