”Asteroid” trolig raket från misslyckad månlandning

2020 SO is a tiny near-Earth asteroid or artificial object discovered by the Pan-STARRS1 survey at the Haleakala Observatory on 17 September 2020. It is currently approaching Earth and its trajectory indicates that it will be temporarily captured by Earth by 15 October 2020. It will enter via the outer Lagrange point L2 and exit via Lagrange point L1. During its geocentric orbit around Earth, 2020 SO will make a close approach to Earth around 1 December 2020 at a nominal perigee distance of approximately 0.13 LD (50,000 km; 31,000 mi). It will also make another close approach around February 2021, at a nominal perigee distance of approximately 0.61 LD (230,000 km; 150,000 mi). By February 2021 the time of closest approach to Earth has an uncertainty of ±1 days.Paul Chodas of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory suspects 2020 SO of being the Surveyor 2 Centaur rocket booster, launched on 20 September 1966. The Earth-like orbit and low relative velocity suggest a possible artificial object. Spectroscopy may help determine if it is covered in titanium dioxide paint. Around the time of closest approach on 1 December 2020, the object will only brighten to about apparent magnitude 14.1, and will require a telescope with roughly a 150mm (6") objective lens to be seen visually.At the time of its discovery, 2020 SO had unremarkable motion typical of a main-belt asteroid. However, the four observations that Pan-STARRS obtained over the course of 1.4 hours showed non-linear motion due to the rotation of the observer around Earth's axis, which is a signature of a nearby object.

Surveyor 2 was to be the second lunar lander in the uncrewed American Surveyor program to explore the Moon. It was launched September 20, 1966 from Cape Kennedy, Florida aboard an Atlas-Centaur rocket. A mid-course correction failure resulted in the spacecraft losing control. Contact was lost with the spacecraft at 9:35 UTC, September 22.