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In 2006, astronomers with the NASA-backed Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona discovered a peculiar body floating amid the sea of thousands of human-made satellites orbiting our planet. After taking a closer look, they determined that the object wasn't just another piece of space junk. Rather, it was a natural satellite that had been temporarily yanked into a tagalong orbit with the Earth, similar to the moon. This "minimoon," designated 2006 RH120, was just a few meters in diameter. But unlike the actual moon, this cosmic body was a transient Earth companion, traveling around the planet for only a year before being ejected from our planet's orbit. More than a decade later, scientists with the Catalina Sky Survey spotted another minimoon (2020 CD3) — this one about the size of a small car — roaming through Earth's orbit , before it was flung out of the Earth-moon system's influence in March 2020. Because of their proximity to Earth, these minimoons have war...

More than 30,000 asteroids are traveling on paths that bring them close to Earth . Some are giant boulders with the potential to smash into our planet, and others are little rocks known as minimoons moving harmlessly alongside Earth. For half a century, Richard Binzel , an astronomer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has dedicated his career to studying them. Live Science spoke with Binzel about minimoons and how these little rocks could eventually help humanity take its first trip to Mars. Related: Undiscovered 'minimoons' may orbit Earth. Could they help us become an interplanetary species ? Q&A with MIT astronomer Richard Binzel Kiley Price: Tell me how you got interested in minimoons and near-Earth asteroids. Richard Binzel: Well, I published my first paper on asteroids 50 years ago. At the time I started becoming interested in becoming a scientist, asteroids were largely unexplored and not well recognized for their science potential, and so it seem...