AKIPRESS.COM - It turns out the moon is not the only object circling the planet. Earth has captured a tiny cosmic object and pulled it into orbit - and it may be a mini-moon, Sky News reports.

The moon is Earth's major natural satellite, and there are more than a million known asteroids.

But astronomers believe they may have discovered a second asteroid - called 2020 CD3 - to temporarily orbit the Earth. Asteroids which orbit the planet are referred to as mini-moons.

Kacper Wierxchos, a researcher at the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey, made the discovery with his colleague Theodore Pruyne.

He hailed the rare sighting as "big news" and tweeted: "The object has a diameter between 1.9 - 3.5m assuming a C-type asteroid albedo.

"But it's a big deal as out of one million known asteroids, this is just the second asteroid known to orbit Earth."