China's Tianwen-2 captures 1st close up image of minimoon Kamo`oalewa
China's Tianwen-2 spacecraft has pulled off a space first, capturing the first close-up image of Kamo`oalewa, a tiny minimoon that, from Earth's perspective, appears to circle our planet while actually traveling around the Sun in a gravitationally linked orbit.
After a 13-month, nearly one billion-kilometer journey since its May 2025 launch, Tianwen-2 got as close as 20km to the asteroid on July 2, revealing its oddly shaped and rugged surface like never before.
Kamo`oalewa is a quasi satellite
Kamo`oalewa is what scientists call a quasi-satellite: it follows the sun but stays linked to Earth's orbit.
Only seven of these are known!
It's pretty small, measuring between 40 and 100 meters wide, and some researchers think it might even be a chunk knocked off our Moon ages ago.