A Nigu object orbiting the Earth is a 54-year-old rocket, not an asteroid, it has been confirmed.

According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the species was classified as an asteroid in September, but observations from a Hawaiian telescope eventually identified the object.

Paul Chodas, NASA’s leading astronomer, identified this object as the Centaur Upper Rocket Stage from Surveyor 2, which failed the 1966 lunar-landing mission.

Size figures are included in the old centaur range, which is about 32 feet long and 10 feet in diameter.

The team, led by Vishnu Reddy of the University of Arizona, used the Infrared Telescope in Hawaii to discover that Chodas is not only a secret object, but has been orbiting the Earth for a century since 1971. Matching data from images.

“It simply came to our notice then. Teamwork wrapped up this puzzle, ”Chodas said in an email.

The object, formally known as 2020 SO, entered Earth’s wide, solitary orbit last month and reached more than 31,000 miles on Tuesday. It will leave the neighborhood in March and return to its orbit around the Sun, returning in 2036.