We can’t travel through time. It’s a painful reality, but it is what it is. It’s impossible to go back to that time of year you wish you had, that hug you didn’t know would be your last, or that first kiss you never should have had. But in space Yes, you can study the past. Not only because the objects are so far away that the light that reaches us was sent millions of years ago. Also because they exist little time capsules that tell us how something as large as our galaxy, as intimate as our planet, or as vast as our planetary system came to be. Therefore, in order to study the origin of the solar system, missions have been launched for years to analyze the asteroids that were probably born with it. It’s something interesting, but it would be much more beneficial for some scientists the study of minimoons.
Is not it a mistake. It is true that there is only one moon on Earth, but we have a few mini-moons. These are small cosmic bodies, quite close to the Earth, whose orbit is influenced by both it and the Earth other parts of the solar system.
The best thing about these mini-moons is that they are quite close to Earth. Therefore, sending a mission there would be much easier than launching it to the asteroids that some probes are already studying. Although the origin of minimoons is not entirely clear, it is believed that they may have their origins in the famous asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. This belt is believed to be part of the protosolar nebula, which is said to have given rise to the solar system. Therefore, it is not necessary to turn to distant asteroids to find out how our planetary system was born. We have the necessary clues much closer to our planet.
A mission to study the origin of the solar system
The two main missions that have traveled to asteroids to study the origin of the solar system are Osiris Rexfrom NASA and Hayabusa 2from the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA).
Osiris Rex’s first target was an asteroid Determine, whose first samples were sent to Earth last September. It is now on its way to the next asteroid, Apophis, which it should reach in 2029. As for Hayabusa 2, its mission was very similar to Osiris Rexbut in asteroid Ryugu.
Both asteroids, which have remained largely unchanged over time, are thought to retain some of the materials the solar system had when it formed. That’s the problem they are so far. The distance to our planet changes as they move; but in general it exceeds 100 million kilometers in Bennu and 300 million in Ryugu. The missions that were sent there were very expensive and take a long time, so doing it regularly is not easy at all.
Why don’t we use what we get?
We may ask ourselves why we do not investigate the origin of the Solar System with the fragments of asteroids that collided with the Earth in the form of meteorites. It’s a good question, but it has an easy answer. His study would be of no use to us because have been contaminated by our own atmosphere. Another option is required and the key is in minimonths.
The role of minimoons in understanding the origin of the solar system
Minimoons are also likely to store materials from the origin of the Solar System. Just like those distant asteroids. But its advantage lies in that They are much closer.
As explained in an interview for Living science an MIT astronomer Richard Binzel, Since their formation, minimoons have been bounced and pulled around the various components of the solar system like a pinball. This could give us even more information about how our planetary system evolved.
It is true that we cannot compare these mini-moons with our main satellite. But they have many stories to tell us. It is worth at least knowing about its existence.
