Can the Earth have more than one “moon”? Meet Mini Moon, your travel companion around the world.

Minimoon, a new home among the stars that may help humans transform themselves into creatures with a home in space.

Mini Moon – Some scientists hope to use these small objects to push humanity's limits even further.
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In 2006, astronomers from the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey project in Arizona, USA, discovered a strange object floating in a sea of ​​man-made satellites. There are thousands of satellites orbiting our planet.
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After the team carefully examined it and discovered that it was not space junk. It is not man-made.
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Rather, it is a natural object that is temporarily pulled into orbit with the Earth. Scientists therefore call these objects “mini-objects” or, more easily understood, mini-moons
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For example, the object called “2006 RH120” is only a few meters in diameter, or in 2020, the discovered mini-moon called “2020 CD3” was the size of a small car.
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These objects are actually different from the “Moon” but are able to travel as companions to Earth for about a year before being ejected by the influence of the Earth and Moon.
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But because they are close enough to Earth these little things therefore require close scientific investigation. But some experts believe that they have the potential to serve as a starting point for exploring the universe.
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The mini-moon could become important, Richard Benzel, a professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Livescience.com. “To achieve this goal while humans operate in interstellar space, they can reach Mars.”
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Stone steps
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In September 2016, NASA launched the mission. An unmanned OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to collect samples from a potentially dangerous planet called Bennu, which has a 1-in-1 chance of colliding with Earth. 2700 in the year 2182 and 7 years later (2023) Osiris Rex returns with success.
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This event has inspired some scientists to think about using a nearby asteroid as a launching pad to Mars. Professor Benzel It is said that bringing these things to join missions may have other good benefits as well. Such as testing the technology used to expand the colony into the universe. These small satellites can be easily accessed.
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“If (humans) want to go anywhere in space you have to change speed,” Binzel said, adding that these small objects are small objects with very little gravity. It also has a low-speed shift (delta-V), which means It doesn't require much thrust to move the spacecraft from low Earth orbit to the asteroid.
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With these features, Minimoon missions therefore use less fuel to travel to other objects in the universe. “It would only take a small amount of fuel to get out of the minimoon. It could return to Earth,” Binzel added. Research suggests that a Minimoon flight would take about 100 days to go there and back.
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Although in theory Mimi Moon will give you a good look. But there are still many limitations that make planning difficult. And carry out their mission before they are expelled from Earth's orbit. What is the most important limitation? “its temporality”
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“They are in temporary orbit with Earth. They are like pets,” Binzel said. They are temporary pets that you can keep for a while. “They're temporary pets that you can keep for a while.” “And then they're gone,” not with us for the rest of our lives like our permanent moon.
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However, it can also serve as a test of the performance of space technology. Life support systems, engines and propulsion systems are not possible on Earth or other asteroids.
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“Getting to Mars is a big step,” said Paul Appel, NASA's chief scientist for small-body exploration. “There's a lot that needs to happen. It has to happen.” Why don't we take a look at some of the near-Earth asteroids that lie between the Earth-Moon system? And Mars”
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Not only that, these trips to the small moon can also help astronauts on Mars: water exploration. Water in space is not just for drinking. But it can also be used as rocket fuel. It is basically liquid hydrogen.
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this is important. This is because spacecraft currently have to carry “all” the water and fuel they need from Earth. This creates enormous weight and requires the rocket to have more fuel to push it away from Earth's gravity. Adding a small amount of weight increases the rocket's fuel requirements dramatically. But if we have a small moon it is like a “stop” to refuel. We will be able to save a lot of costs.
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“When you go on vacation when you're traveling or driving somewhere “you're not going to have the oxygen and the food and everything with you the whole trip,” Appel said. “And also, we wanted to avoid having to carry everything off the ground with us. Go all the way and come back. Because it's very expensive.”
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Therefore, near-Earth asteroids may be suitable candidates for space “fuel” stations, and research has shown that many of these objects are rich in metals. If we could get to the water trapped inside, this water (which must be separated into oxygen and hydrogen) could become an important source of rocket fuel.
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“If you can access that water and tap into it suddenly you have water to drink. There's oxygen to breathe. And most importantly, you have rocket fuel,” Appel added.
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Rocket fuel

Most of NASA's current efforts are focused on harvesting water from the Moon but several private companies, including Karman+, TransAstra and AstroForge, are also targeting asteroids to extract water and minerals.
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Experts say these operations are unlikely to happen anytime soon, largely because they are expensive and the technology required is not yet well developed. But the mini-moon missions themselves could serve as temporary training and testing sites for companies.
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However, the downside to minimoons is that there is little space. Because the surface is dry from “sitting in the sun and cooking for a long time,” Binzel says, many scientists believe this temporary minimum has no water. But no one has been able to prove this yet. “You don't know until you see it,” Benzel said.
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Find out more about MiniMons
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Being small and moving quickly, this makes it difficult for ground-based telescopes to detect them. But scientists believe that a newly built ground-based telescope located high in the Chilean Andes, which will be the largest digital camera in the world, will solve this problem and is expected to be deactivated in 2050.
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The camera, classified as a Space and Time Heritage Survey, will take 700 images every night for 10 years to provide reports on the solar system. It is extremely accurate, allowing users to explore the universe in unparalleled detail. Dark matter or dark energy A simulation conducted in 2020 revealed that it will also detect small objects more frequently, every three months.
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Not only that, in 2027 NASA also intends to use another instrument called “NEO Surveyor” to detect asteroids in space. It conducts a full-sky scan every two weeks to identify and detect any satellites that might pose a threat to Earth. Although the main goal is to identify a “killer asteroid”, it has the potential to be a discovered mini-moon
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While it is still too early to know whether or not mini-moon missions will play an important role in space technology, or space mining? But many experts believe that by studying these temporary companions of the world there will be many other areas of knowledge to follow. Including finding the seeds of life in the solar system. And Minimoon is a great place to be.
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“The reason is we've never been there before. “Because there aren't many (minions),” Benzel said. “But now we're just discovering them. And they will be at the forefront because we have new telescopes coming.

Researched and edited by Witit Borompichaichartkul

Origin
https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/undiscovered-minimoons-may-orbit-earth-could-they-help-us-become-an-interplanetary-species
https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=2006%20RH120
https://catalina.lpl.arizona.edu/news/2020/02/catalina-sky-survey-discovers-new-mini-moon-orbiting-earth
https://www.nature.com/articles/514559a
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018JE005584
https://www.eenews.net/articles/lunar-gold-rush-nasa-wants-to-mine-the-moon/
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fspas.2018.00013/full
https://hir.harvard.edu/Economys-of-the-stars/