An old US lunar rocket returns to Earth's orbit

Researchers from NASA noticed that on November 8, the Earth captured an old spacecraft in a gravitational trap.

object and temporarily turned it into his satellite.Scientists reported that this is not an asteroid, but an upper stage of the Atlas Centaur rocket, which was launched back in 1966. Astronomers note that the object will slowly make two leisurely loops around the Earth and resume its path towards the Sun.

Object was first noticed by a survey telescopePan-STARRS1 - Researchers have noticed its curvature. Then scientists from the Center for the Study of Near-Earth Objects at NASA suspected that this was not an ordinary asteroid. The surface of most of them is more elongated and tilted relative to the Earth's orbit.

The rocket on September 20, 1966 threw onthe trajectory to the Moon by the Surveyor 2. During the circumlunar maneuver, one correcting engine failed to ignite, because of which the descent vehicle began to fall on the surface of the Moon and on September 23 crashed only 130 km from the place of the proposed landing.

“November 8, 2020 SO slowly approached the areathe gravitational dominance of the Earth, called the Hill sphere, which extends 1.5 million km from the planet. The object will remain in it for about four more months until it leaves for a new orbit around the Sun in March 2021, ”NASA said in a statement.

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