The Earth has more moons than you imagine. There are asteroids that remain linked or appear to be anchored to the planet’s orbit for relatively short periods on an astronomical scale. Rocks accompany the Earth during its journey around the Sun for weeks, months, years and even centuries. The astronomical community has a name for them: quasi-moons. After two decades, one of the first quasi-satellites to be identified received its official name in honor of a goddess from Roman mythology.
Asteroid 2004 GU is now officially named Cardea. The quasi-moon was discovered in April 2004 by a project trying to find objects potentially dangerous to Earth. It has been orbiting the Sun in a similar path to the planet for the last 400 years and will continue to do so for approximately 600 more years.
Because 2004 GU will be a regular companion to the planet, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) decided to start a campaign to give it a recognizable name, as if it were another planet or moon in the solar system. The organization prepared a contest in which anyone could propose a name. 3,000 proposals were received and in the end seven names from different cultures were chosen: Bakanuwa (Filipino), Ehaema (Estonian), Enkidu (Sumerian), Otr (Norse), Tarriaksuk (Inuit), Tecciztecatl (Aztec) and Cardea (Roman).
The Earth’s quasi-moon has a diameter of approximately 200 meters. It takes 365 days to make a complete revolution around the star. Astronomers have calculated that, by the year 2,800, Cardea will get close enough to Venus to modify its trajectory and begin its slow distance from our planet.
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A study of 14 lunar samples determined that the Moon is made almost entirely of the Earth’s mantle that was released after the Theia crash.
Cardea, the goddess of hinges
In Roman mythology, Cardea was a nymph who lived in the fields where Rome was built. She is considered the protector of the doorsteps of homes. It is associated with the protection of a family and the good health of the inhabitants of a house. Its name comes from the Latin word ‘thistle‘ which in Spanish means ‘hinge’. This is a rarely used word to refer to the hinge, the extension that allows a door to open and close.
Other famous quasi-moons on Earth are 2016 HO3, 3753 Cruithne and 2023 FW13. Recently the 10-meter asteroid 2024 PT5 also accompanied the planet for two months and then continued its path through the solar system.
Due to their smaller size and distance, these neighbors of the Earth are not usually visible to telescopes. Only in the last 20 years have observation methods become powerful enough to distinguish them. There is now a record of quasi-moons that have been docked since the time of the Roman Empire. Astronomers think they come from the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. They also do not rule out that they are fragments of the Moon itself that broke off when it originated 4.5 billion years ago.
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