Earth’s New ‘Quasi’ Moon Will Stick Around for Centuries

stargazer have detected a minor asteroid that does n’t seem to require to go off . call a quasi - satellite , this raw companion circle around the Earth as it revolve the sun — and it ’s going to bide that direction for the next few hundred years .

Technically talk , this newly strike asteroid , dubbed 2016 HO3 , is in orbit around the sun . But as it get this yearly trek , it ’s also encircle around the Earth . It ’s far too distant to be regard a lawful raw artificial satellite of our planet , but it ’s a just model of a quasi - satellite , or near - Earth companion .

This little guy , which measures somewhere between 120 to 300 foot ( 40 - 100 meters ) across , never ventures too far from Earth . As it orbits the sun , asteroid 2016 HO3 spends about half of the time close to the sun than Earth , and give ahead of our satellite . The other one-half of the time it falls behind .

It ’s also in a slant area , which causes it to thread up and down on the orbital plane like a bobber on choppy waters . As NASA ’s Paul Chodas put it in apress argument , “ In burden , this small asteroid is get in a little dance with Earth . ”

Over the grade of many days , the asteroid starts to freewheel inwards and outwards , but Earth ’s sobriety is strong enough to ensure that its young companion does n’t venture too close or too far . It never gets further than about 100 times the space of the Earth to the Moon , and never airless than about 38 time the aloofness of the lunation , or about 9 million miles ( 14 million km ) . So it ’s not a threat to our planet .

Asteroid 2016 HO3 was detected in late April by the Pan - STARRS 1 asteroid study telescope in Hawaii . deliberation paint a picture that the asteroid became a quasi - planet about a hundred geezerhood ago , and that it ’ll adhere around for century to add up .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.