You can add an unknown space object flying past Earth to your 2020 Bingo card.
As if the year couldn’t bring any more strange occurrences, an object that is technically flying and also unidentified is now on the list.
But don’t call it a UFO.
At first NASA said they weren’t sure what zoomed past our planet when it was spotted in September, thinking it was an asteroid. Now experts believe it could be a hunk of space junk.
EarthSky reported that experts believe it is a Centaur upper-stage rocket booster, possibly from the Surveyor 2 spacecraft that launched in 1966.
Asteroid #2020SO is suspected of being the Surveyor 2 centaur rocket booster, launched on 20 September 1966. The Earth-like orbit and low relative velocity suggest a possible man-made object.
— Kevin Heider (@kpheider) September 21, 2020
A virtual telescope streamed the flyby as it approached earth about 50,000 km away around 3:50 a.m. EST, Nov. 30.
The Earth’s gravitational pull caught the object and made it into a pseudo-mini-moon, CNET reported.
Cox Media Group
