Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll learn when you read this story:<\/p>\n
Object Arjuna 2025 PN7 was thought to be a meteorite in an Earthlike orbit, but that is now being questioned.<\/p>\n
The new hypothesis suggests that 2025 P7 could actually be Zond 1, a Soviet spacecraft that was destined for Venus but broke down.<\/p>\n
Even if the object is not the actual probe intended for Venus, it might still be a throwaway rocket phase from that mission.<\/p>\n
Every object that trespasses on the inner solar system<\/a> brings with it questions about its origin. Though it is suspected to be a chunk of rock from some far-flung region of space, no one ever really found out what \u2018Oumuamua<\/a> is made of, and while 31\/Atlas<\/a> may be a comet<\/a>, Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb hypothesized about the possibility of it being an alien spacecraft<\/a>. Now, Loeb thinks the newest target of interest could also be a technosignature\u2014one from Earth.<\/p>\n Object Arjuna 2025 PN7, named for the Arjuna asteroid belt, was detected by the Pan-STARRS survey as far back as 2014, but it was so faint that it went unnoticed by astronomers until now. Researchers Carlos and Ra\u00fal de la Fuente Marcos of the Complutense University of Madrid published a recent study<\/a> exploring the possibility of it being a quasi-moon. The Arjuna belt is made up of over a hundred asteroids in Earth-like orbits, quasi-satellites that move along with our planet but are not gravitationally bound to it, as opposed to mini moons that are gravitationally captured and orbit Earth temporarily.<\/p>\n \u201cThis \u2018Arjuna\u2019 object has, by definition of a quasi-satellite, an orbital period of a year\u2026resulting in its extended presence close to Earth, despite following a heliocentric orbit,\u201d Loeb and colleague Adam Hibberd said in a study<\/a> recently submitted for publication.<\/p>\n Loeb and Hibberd propose that the Arjuna object is actually a relic of a defunct civilization. That civilization would be the Soviet Union<\/a>, which sent a failed mission to Venus in April 1964. This was the era when the Soviets were already vying to put the first boot prints on the Moon<\/a> while also sending spacecraft to Mars and Venus. The Zond-1<\/a> probe didn\u2019t quite make it. En route to Venus, it was forced to use its rocket engine<\/a> to give it more of a boost and later needed a course correction. There were operation errors and glitches in communication with the probe when its pressurized orbit compartment began to leak. It ended up depressurizing, and communication blacked out.<\/p>\n Hibberd\u2019s models of interplanetary mission trajectories from the 1960s singled out Zond 1 as the candidate spacecraft most likely to be the mystery object. These models showed that 2025 PN7 fell into a quasi-satellite orbit around the time of the Zond 1 launch. Its closet approach to Venus occurred in July of 1964, the same time that Zond 1 was supposed to arrive at its destination. Its heliocentric longitude, or the angular distance between a celestial object and the Sun, evolved over the path that the probe would have taken if it survived, and both Zond 1 and 2025 PN7 have similar levels of brightness.<\/p>\n