According to a report in Yahoo! News, researchers Kacper Wierzchos and Teddy Pruyne spotted the ‘mini-moon’ at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona on 15 February.
Just one tiny moon
It is said to be about 1.9 to 3.5 meters (6-11 feet) in diameter which is about the size of a car.In comparison, our actual moon is a massive 3,474 km in diameter.
"BIG NEWS. Earth has a new temporarily captured object/Possible mini-moon called 2020 CD3," likely to be a C-type asteroid,” tweeted Wierzchos after the discovery.
BIG NEWS (thread 1/3). Earth has a new temporarily captured object/Possible mini-moon called 2020 CD3. On the night of Feb. 15, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Teddy Pruyne and I found a 20th magnitude object. Here are the discovery images. pic.twitter.com/zLkXyGAkZl
— Kacper Wierzchos (@WierzchosKacper) February 26, 2020
He said the discovery is significant as it is only the second asteroid ever known to orbit Earth, the first being RH120 in 2006.
He added that the ‘mini-moon’ might have entered the Earth’s orbit three years ago.
Meanwhile, earthlings are fascinated by the mini-moon and one creative earthling even created a twitter account for the lil guy.
I prefer MiniMoon, Moon Junior, or just Moonior.
— MiniMoon (@2020Cd3) February 27, 2020
"I prefer MiniMoon, Moon Junior, or just Moonior," detailed one tweet.
For those of y'all just getting to know me - Lil' Luna is my rap name, and my ?mixtape? is of course going to be called 2020CD3.
— MiniMoon (@2020Cd3) February 28, 2020
Another tweet goes "For those of y'all just getting to know me - Lil' Luna is my rap name, and my mixtape is of course going to be called 2020CD3."
For more tweets by MiniMoon, follow @2020Cd3.
We hope you stick around for a bit Mini Moon! Much love, Earthlings.