Earth has gained a second moon — a tiny one, barely the size of a washing machine, that has been circling the planet unnoticed since the spring.
The object, an asteroid designated 2026 QQ8, is only about a metre (three feet) across. It was drawn into Earth’s gravity in late April and has been tracing a wide, uneven loop around the planet ever since. The International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center confirmed the capture on 29 October, announcing that orbital calculations showed the rock was “temporarily bound to the Earth”.
It was first spotted on 20 August by Hungarian astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky, using a telescope at the Piszkéstető Observatory in northern Hungary. For weeks it was not clear what astronomers were looking at: the rock’s odd trajectory raised the possibility that it was not an asteroid at all, but a piece of human-made space debris left over from an old launch.
Follow-up observations with the University of Hawaii’s 2.2-metre telescope and the Lowell Discovery Telescope settled the question. The Minor Planet Center reported that “no link to a known artificial object has been found”, confirming 2026 QQ8 as a natural object — Earth’s newest, if smallest, temporary satellite.
There is no danger from the visitor. At its closest, on 18 August, it passed about 537,000 kilometres from Earth — roughly one and a half times the distance to the Moon — and it will not come any closer. Even if it did strike the atmosphere, astronomers note, a rock this small would burn up as a brief streak of light.
Its stay is short. The asteroid is expected to slip out of Earth’s gravitational grip in December and resume its own orbit around the Sun in 2027. Its path around the Sun is remarkably similar to Earth’s own, tilted by just half a degree and taking about 358 days to complete — which is why the two bodies keep meeting. Calculations suggest 2026 QQ8 swings close to Earth roughly once a decade: it passed by in 1965 without being captured, and its next close approach, in 2058, is not expected to trap it again.
Mini-moons like this one are distinct from quasi-moons, which merely appear to orbit Earth while actually circling the Sun. 2026 QQ8 is genuinely, if briefly, bound to our planet — a reminder that Earth’s family of satellites is larger, and more changeable, than the single Moon in the night sky suggests.
Sources: EarthSky, “A new mini-moon for Earth! Meet 2026 QQ8” (https://earthsky.org/space/mini-moon-for-earth-2026-qq8/); IFLScience, “Earth Has A Tiny New Mini-Moon” (https://www.iflscience.com/earth-has-a-tiny-new-mini-moon-its-so-small-at-first-we-thought-it-was-just-a-piece-of-junk-85121); International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center, Minor Planet Electronic Circular, 29 October 2026.
