Scientists working for a NASA-funded project at the University of Arizona said that a possible "mini moon" is currently orbiting the Earth.
Kacper Wierzchos of the Catalina Sky Survey tweeted this week that an object, 2020 CD3, has been captured by Earth's gravitational pull, and is temporarily in orbit around the Earth.
The object is not very large, only 6 to 11 feet, Wierzchos said, but he added it is still an extraordinary discovery.
"it's a big deal as out of ~ 1 million known asteroids, this is just the second asteroid known to orbit Earth (after 2006 RH120, which was also discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey)," he tweeted.
2020 CD3 began orbiting the Earth three years ago.
Elon Musk, the head of Tesla, jokingly tweeted, "It’s not mine." Tesla sent a Roadster into space in 2018.
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