In order to see the asteroid, observers would need a large, research-grade telescope.

“We have larger objects that are in low Earth orbit, like the International Space Station,” Pryal said. “It’s the size of a football field, visible to the naked eye, and routinely orbits the Earth every 90 minutes.”

The asteroid is made up of debris left over from the formation of the solar system.

“Much of this debris primarily forms the asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but there are still residual products throughout the solar system,” Pryal said. “There are thousands of near-Earth asteroids that essentially orbit at the same distance that the Earth orbits the sun – this asteroid is an example of that.”

While the asteroid is normally in a solar orbit, there are times when it gets too close to Earth and enters a temporary orbit. Pryal said scientists will study the asteroid, but the best way to study asteroids is in the lab after they crash to Earth. In space, scientists can observe them but cannot obtain samples.

The asteroid has probably been orbiting near Earth for 4.6 billion years.

“The next time it will be gravitationally captured by Earth will be around 2055,” Pryal said. “It will probably just continue like this, we never really get close to the moon, never get close to it unless it is moved by gravity in one direction or another.”

Despite being tiny and far away, the mini moon has taken up a lot of space in popular media. Pryal believes that because of the moon's importance to humanity, there is a public interest in the asteroid – mythological, philosophical and poetic.

“It's fun to say we'll have a second moon for a short period of time, but honestly we'll probably always have these little rocks orbiting us or gravitationally bound to Earth,” he said. “There are hundreds to thousands of artificial moons built by humans orbiting Earth that are much cooler than this object. If the International Space Station is directly overhead in Charlottesville, it is physically closer to us than New York City because it is only about 250 miles away.”