The discovery and characterization of minimoon 2024 PT$_5$

Abstract

Minimoons are asteroids that become temporarily captured by the Earth-Moon system. We present the discovery of 2024 PT$_5$, a minimoon discovered by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) Sutherland telescope on 2024 August 7. The minimoon with heliocentric semi-major axis, $a$$\sim$1.01 au, and perihelion, $q$$\sim$0.99 au, became captured by the Earth-Moon system on 2024 September 29 and left on 2024 November 25 UTC. Visible g, r, i, and Z spectrophotometry was obtained using Gemini North/Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on 2024 September 27. The color indices are g-r = 0.58$\pm$0.04, r-i = 0.29$\pm$0.04, i-Z = -0.27$\pm$0.06, and the spectrum best matches lunar rock samples followed by S-complex asteroids. Assuming an albedo of 0.21 and using our measured absolute magnitude of 28.64$\pm$0.04, 2024 PT$_5$ has a diameter of 5.4$\pm$1.2 m. We also detect variations in the lightcurve of 2024 PT$_5$ with a 0.28$\pm$0.07 magnitude amplitude and a double-peaked period of $\sim$2600$\pm$500 s. We improve the orbital solution of 2024 PT$_5$ with our astrometry and estimate the effect of radiation pressure on its deriving an area-to-mass ratio of 7.02$\pm$2.05$\times$10$^{-5}$ m$^2$/kg, implying a density of $\sim$3.9$\pm$2.1 g/cm$^3$, compatible with having a rocky composition. If we assume 2024 PT$_5$ is from the NEO population, its most likely sources are resonances in the inner Main Belt by comparing its orbit with the NEO population model, though this does not exclude a lunar origin.