Will Wyoming Residents Be Able To See the Two Moon Event?

One of the biggest buzzes in the entire state of Wyoming has been the upcoming "second moon" event, which will be taking place for approximately two months.

The question is though, what exactly is this second moon?

Obviously, the planet will not be getting another "natural satellite" or a second moon, so to speak. What it actually is easier to define. The object, which has been classified as 2024 PT5, is a near earth object.

The asteroid is roughly around eleven meters ( or 36 feet), and was discovered the ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) in South Africa on Wednesday, August 7th, 2024.

According to data gleaned from The Tennessean:

Asteroid 2024 PT5 is expected to enter Earth's gravitational pull on Sunday, Sept. 29, and stay with us until Monday, Nov. 25. After it will escape Earth's orbit and be pulled toward the sun before continuing its travels around our solar system.

The asteroid will be in orbit for 56 days and will take a horseshoe path around Earth.

Now on to the most pressing question:

Will Wyomingites be able to spot the asteroid during its orbit?

The quick answer is no.

According to the NASA JPL Small-Body Database:

2024 PT5 won't be visible to most amateur telescopes due to its extremely low absolute magnitude of 22, which is too dim even for backyard binoculars or telescopes.

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There is some hope though.

A professor from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, was quoted by Space.com stating:

The object is too small and dim for typical amateur telescopes and binoculars. However, the object is well within the brightness range of typical telescopes used by professional astronomers. A telescope with a diameter of at least 30 inches plus a CCD or CMOS detector are needed to observe this object, a 30 inches telescope and a human eye behind it will not be enough.

After a quick Google search, if you don't already own that type of equipment, you're looking at range of roughly about $2000.00 (brand new), to purchase everything you'll need.

In the end, it all comes down to how bad you actually want to see the asteroid.