A space rock discovered by scientists at the University of Hawaii is actually a quasi-moon. What does this mean? The celestial body, now named 2025 PN7, moves almost perfectly in sync with Earth, writes News Nation. It’s been doing this for about 60 years and will stick with you until 2083, NASA believes. It thus became the eighth quasi-moon of the earth.
Super Moon PHOTO Live Science
Earth has a new ‘space companion’
The space rock was first spotted in the summer of 2025 by researchers at the University of Hawaii The exact size of the new space companion is unclear, but it is estimated to be between 18 and 40 meters in diameter — very small compared to other celestial bodies.
What is a quasi-moon
Quasi-moons aren’t really moons. They are asteroids. Unlike our Moon, they are not gravitationally bound to Earth. Instead, they are objects that happen to follow a path similar to Earth’s orbit around the Sun — like two boats floating on the same river, but not tied together, writes Yahoo News
“The Solar System is full of surprises, so we never stop looking,Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, one of the researchers who wrote a study on 2025 PN7, told CNN.
Quasi-moons don’t stay near Earth forever. They tend to accompany the planet for a relatively short period. This quasi-moon is believed to have started accompanying the Earth about 60 years ago and will leave the common orbit around 2083.
The distance from Earth varies: the closest has come to about 4 million kilometers (about ten times the distance between the Earth and the Moon), and sometimes it is more than 18 million kilometers.
It is not Earth’s first quasi-moon
Because they are too small to be easily seen through telescopes, quasi-moons were not discovered until the 1990s. With this new discovery, there are now eight known quasi-moons traveling through space alongside Earth
The others are:
- 164207 Cardea.
- (277810) 2006 FV35.
- 2013 LX28.
- 2014 OL339.
- 469219 Kamoʻoalewa.
- 2022 YG.
- 2023 FW13.
Quasi-moons are special objects of study for astronomers. Because of their unique orbits, they provide a rare opportunity for long-term research.
“The fact that they orbit the Earth allows even very small asteroids like this to be studied for years, sometimes even decades, as they return to our vicinity every year,” said Sam Deen, an amateur astronomer, to Sky & Telescope magazine.
Most asteroids pass by Earth very quickly, giving astronomers only a short window of time for observations. In contrast, quasi-moons stay nearby for years, making them ideal subjects for long-term research.
