Tiny asteroid has been orbiting Earth since the 1960s
Astronomers just spotted a tiny asteroid, 2025 PN7, quietly orbiting near Earth since the 1960s.
Recently discovered at Hawaii's Pan-STARRS observatory, it's only about 19 meters wide and will stick around for another 60 years before drifting off.
Quasi-moons are temporary companions
Quasi-moons are space rocks that loop around the Sun alongside Earth but aren't actually captured by our gravity.
2025 PN7 is now the smallest and least stable of seven known Earth quasi-moons—sometimes coming as close as 2.8 million miles or drifting out to 37 million miles away.
For comparison, Kamo`oalewa, another famous quasi-moon, hangs around for over three centuries.
New observatories will help find more hidden cosmic neighbors
Because it's so small and faint, spotting 2025 PN7 needed some serious telescope power.
With new observatories like Chile's Vera C. Rubin Observatory now online, scientists expect to uncover even more of these hidden cosmic neighbors soon.