Overview
- Classified as a quasi-moon, 2025 PN7 orbits the Sun in near-step with Earth rather than being gravitationally bound like a true moon.
- Observations and archival detections indicate it has paced Earth for about 60 years and will drift away around 2083.
- At closest approach it comes to roughly 2.5 million miles (about 4 million km), or about ten times the Earth–Moon distance.
- Researchers traced sightings in older images dating to 1957, and NASA notes it is the smallest and least stable among a small set of known quasi-moons.
- Its proximity and predictable windows of visibility make it a practical candidate for scientific study or unmanned mission testing.