We recently held the 49th annual meeting on planetary sciences in Provo, where we confirmed the true nature of our earthly neighbor. It was previously believed that this was a burnt booster rocket falling in an unusual near-earth orbit.
It turned out that (469219) 2016 HO3 acts as an asteroid, and not space debris. Before us is a small near-Earth object orbiting our planet as a quasi-satellite. Up to this point in the list of similar bodies there were only 5. So far no one knows where this asteroid came from. But it is believed that he has been kept at 38-100 lunar distances for several centuries. Although it is located close to the Earth, it is difficult to study due to the size of 100 feet. One turn takes 28 minutes, and its composition resembles standard asteroids. A recent analysis has shown that it has a natural origin. To limit the rotation period, he was observed on April 14 and 18 in the Big Binocular Telescope and the Discovery Channel telescope.
To visualize its orbit, you need to draw a hoop around the sun. When rotating around a star, the asteroid performs circular cycles relative to the Earth. As a result, it is located in our orbit, but is not gravitationally associated with the planet.
