Our planet's Moon might look dead and stagnant from our vantage point here on Earth, but a new study suggests it was moving about just a 'hot minute' ago. On the dark side of our neighboring satellite,

For a brief, but exciting, time last year, Earth had two moons. A small asteroid lingered close to our planet in its orbit around the Sun, temporarily caught by Earth’s gravity to become a far away mini-moon. A closer look at the space rock reveals a rather familiar origin: Earth’s mini-moon might actually be a broken-off piece of our regular Moon.

The study suggests that the Moon likely formed largely from Earth's mantle material — with minimal involvement from Theia.

An asteroid that orbited near Earth for a few months as a mini-moon may be a chunk of the moon that was blasted off by an impact thousands of years ago.

New research suggests that Earth's recent mini-moon might have originated as part of our actual moon long, long ago.