It won't be there forever, but Earth will have a second moon when a small asteroid begins to orbit the planet later this month, space researchers have announced.

2024 PT₅ will then swing past for a final goodbye on 9 January 2025, coming within 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) of Earth before heading back out into the inky blackness.

Most of them wander far beyond our perception ... If you miss these two visits, the next mini-moon might often be just a few years away. “Captures like this must occur frequently,” Richardson tells the Washington Post. “They are just hard to ...