Earth Has a New Mini-Moon — Meet Arjuna 2025 PN7, Our Cosmic Twin in Orbit!

24 October 2025

It may sound like a sci-fi headline but it's very real -- Earth now has a new celestial companion, a little asteroid named Arjuna 2025 PN7 by scientists.

NASA has confirmed that the rock, discovered by the University of Hawaii, is officially a “quasi-moon” — a rare type of celestial companion that travels almost exactly in sync with Earth.

PN7 belongs to a special group of asteroids known as the Arjuna class, objects that move around the Sun in orbits very similar to Earth’s. They aren't gravitationally bound to our planet but they remain nearby for long periods.

So PN7 is not exactly a true moon, but it keeps pace with us, looping around the Sun in a path so similar that it appears to shadow our planet as we orbit -- it'll continue to do so until 2083.

Scientists estimate it’s only 18 to 36 meters wide, about the size of a small building. Tiny by cosmic standards, but significant enough to earn its own place in Earth’s extended neighborhood.

At its closest, it comes within 4 million kms, roughly 10 times farther than the Moon. At its most distant, it can swing out to 17 million — like a silent cosmic neighbour jogging just a few steps behind.

Fun Fact: This little traveler is not new at all. Data shows it has been looping around the Sun alongside Earth since the 1960s. Because it is faint and distant, it took years of sky-scanning to spot!