A team of astronomers from the University of Helsinki, the Paris Observatory and the University of Hawaii have simulated the passage of 10 million asteroids next to the Earth and have come to the conclusion that, thanks to gravity, it must have caught some a small celestial object and that, at some point, in addition to the Moon, there was at least one "mini-moon" one meter in diameter revolving around our planet . According to the simulation, the asteroids that the Earth was able to capture did not rotate in circles, but followed a complex trajectory defined simultaneously by the gravity of the Earth, that of the Moon and that of the Sun. The typical "mini moon" could have rotated around the blue planet. for 9 months, although some may have accompanied Earth for decades.
The simulation has been possible thanks to the use of the French supercomputer Jade . "In a normal personal computer it would take six years to do the same," explained Jeremie Vaubaillon, co-author of the work published in the scientific journal Icarus .
"The mini-moons are scientifically very interesting," adds his colleague Robert Jedicke, who believes that a mini-moon could one day return to Earth, providing astronomers with "a simple way to examine a sample of material that has not changed much since the beginning of the Earth. solar system 4.6 billion years ago. "
