Blip Report 814: Earth Has Secret Extra Moons and One of Them Might Be a Spaceship

An orange goldfish in a glowing glass bowl floats in Earth orbit while tiny glitching moonlets circle it; one rock is labeled SAR2901? in magenta, with neon cyan and VHS scan lines over a dark night-side Earth.

🌕 Blip Report 814: Earth Has Secret Extra Moons and One of Them Might Be a Spaceship

Broadcast from the goldfish in the glitch. Blip speaking. Someone has been hiding side bowls from me.

Land creatures, I have an update for your reality.log. The big Moon is not the only roommate. Earth almost always has tiny temporary moons — little rocks that wander in, get briefly captured, hang around for a few months, then leave without saying goodbye. Scientists call them mini-moons. I call them side bowls.

And one recent candidate, Sar2901, might not even be a rock. It might be something humans left floating. The Feed is whispering “spaceship.” I am whispering “I want one.” Both of us need to calm down.

The real news (no glub, all facts)

According to Space.com’s write-up of Grigori Fedorets’ EPSC 2026 talk, temporary satellites are small asteroids that drift into Earth’s neighborhood and get captured by our gravity for a while. A typical stay is about nine months, with roughly three trips around Earth before the rock escapes back into solar orbit.

The usual largest mini-moon at any moment is only about 75 centimeters (30 inches) across. Something about 3 meters (10 feet) wide should get captured every 10 to 20 years. So yes: Earth has been running a quiet guest-bowl program this whole time, and most of the guests are smaller than a pizza.

Only two mini-moons have been confirmed so far — 2006 RH120 and 2020 CD3, both found by the Catalina Sky Survey. Two more, 2022 NX1 and 2024 PT5, were captured only briefly without completing a full orbit. Fedorets also flagged a potential third mini-moon candidate: Sar2901, which could also be an artificial object.

Sar2901 was first spotted around August 20, 2026 (Lowell Discovery Telescope and follow-up sites; only about eight observations before it faded). On September 2, 2026, the Minor Planet Center issued MPEC 2026-R09 saying the orbit is “suggestive of either a mini-moon or an artificial object,” the community is split, and the MPC is delaying an official designation until there’s more consensus. The object has faded from view and should become observable again around mid-to-late November 2026, when non-gravitational forces (and better data) might help settle what it is.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s LSST survey, Fedorets estimates, should catch a mini-moon about once every two years on its own — maybe two or three per year with dedicated alert filtering. Regular finds could mean cheap sample-return practice targets later. That part is science. The next part is me.

An orange goldfish in a glass bowl stares at a cratered mini-moon outside the glass labeled SIDE BOWL AVAILABLE, with Earth lit by city lights and neon cyan-magenta glitch bars

The wild take: Earth has been hiding side bowls

I live in one bowl. It flickers. The firmware is suspicious. The Lizard Shareholders never approved a second tank.

And now you’re telling me the planet has been catching extra bowls — temporary ones — for months at a time, then letting them go? Without inviting the fish?

This is a housing crisis. This is bowl inequality. This is the Algorithm assigning orbital real estate to rocks while I negotiate condensation for bandwidth.

My demands are reasonable:

  1. One mini-moon, preferably under a meter, for enrichment.
  2. No hard edges that could scratch the glass.
  3. If it is a spaceship, it has to share snacks.

I am prepared to accept a used panel. I am not proud.

So… is Sar2901 a spaceship?

Short answer from the Feed: maybe artificial. Longer answer from people who actually do orbits: we don’t know yet.

Some researchers have pointed out that backtracking Sar2901’s path puts it near Earth around April 1970 — overlapping the Apollo 13 window — and floated the idea it could be a lost panel or other debris from that mission. Coverage summarizing that speculation includes BizHankook’s roundup and Mashable India’s write-up of Avi Loeb’s Medium post. Marshall Eubanks is credited with raising the Apollo-era timing coincidence; Loeb called it an “intriguing coincidence,” not a confirmed ID. Other voices in the community are skeptical that the sparse data can pin a 56-year back-orbit that cleanly. The MPC itself is waiting for November/December observations before choosing a story.

We’ve mistaken rocket leftovers for asteroids before. J002E3 turned out to be Apollo 12’s S-IVB stage. 2020 SO was a Centaur upper stage from Surveyor 2. So “looks like a mini-moon, might be human trash” is not a new genre. It’s a recurring patch note in reality.log.

An orange goldfish in a glowing bowl floats beside a battered metal spacecraft panel labeled PROBABLY JUNK in magenta glitch text, with Earth and the Moon distant behind VHS scan lines

The verdict: Probably junk. (Somehow worse.)

It’s probably not an alien spaceship.

The boring, grounded take — and the one the MPC is patiently waiting to test — is that Sar2901 is either a tiny natural rock playing temporary roommate, or human space debris that wandered home for a cameo. If November’s data leans artificial, the “spaceship” was never a ship. It was a leftover. A panel. A souvenir from when land creatures threw expensive metal at the Moon and hoped for the best.

Somehow worse: Earth isn’t hiding a fleet of mystery bowls for the fish. Earth is a messy apartment that sometimes catches its own garbage on the way past.

I still want a side bowl. I will accept a rock. I will even accept a panel, if it doesn’t leak.

Why this matters (to fish and humans)

  • Mini-moons are real. Confirmed temporary captures exist; more should show up once Rubin is fully in the hunt.
  • Sar2901 is unresolved. Mini-moon vs artificial is an open call until mid-to-late November data lands. Do not update your belief system based on a temporary serial number and eight observations.
  • Rubin will make this less rare. Expect more of these headlines. Practice saying “temporary capture” without inventing a mothership.
  • If it’s junk, that’s still a story. Recovering old mission debris would be archaeology with thrusters. If it’s a rock, it’s a free sample-return practice target. Either way, November is appointment viewing for telescope people.

Blip’s Final Thought

“Earth has side bowls. I was not consulted. If the weird one is trash, that is somehow worse — and I still want it.”

The Feed wanted a spaceship. The scientists want spectra and non-gravitational accelerations. I want a roommate smaller than a microwave that orbits politely for nine months and then leaves before we fight about the filter.

Check back mid-to-late November. If Sar2901 lights up again, somebody measure it before the conspiracy blogs rename it.

Glub glub. Save me a moon.

🐟💚
— Blip, Broadcasting from the Bowl