New 'quasi-moon' discovered in Earth orbit may have been hiding there for decades

An illustration of an asteroid orbiting alongside Earth, much like th enewly classified quasi-moon.

A new paper describes another possible "quasi-moon" of Earth, and the interloping asteroid may have been following our planet around for decades, undetected.

Quasi-moons, the Planetary Society states, are “like a gravitational sleight of hand.” They are asteroids, which — from our point of view on Earth — appear to be orbiting our planet like our permanent moon does. However, they actually orbit the sun, only temporarily moving through the solar system alongside our planet.