Turns out, planet Earth has a little friend keeping it company in space.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory this week announced the discovery of a small asteroid it's calling Earth's "constant companion." Asteroid 2016 HO3, which poses no threat to Earth, also orbits around the sun as it plays a game of "leap frog" with our planet, JPL said. Half the time, its orbit takes it closer to the sun and it passes ahead of Earth. The other half of the time, it's farther from the sun and falls behind.
"Since 2016 HO3 loops around our planet, but never ventures very far away as we both go around the sun, we refer to it as a quasi-satellite of Earth," Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at the JPL in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement.
Another asteroid — 2003 YN107 — followed a similar orbital pattern more than a decade ago, but it has since strayed from our vicinity, he added.
"This new asteroid is much more locked onto us," Chodas said. "Our calculations indicate 2016 HO3 has been a stable quasi-satellite of Earth for almost a century, and it will continue to follow this pattern as Earth's companion for centuries to come."
Asteroid 2016 HO3 was first spotted by the Pan-STARRS 1 asteroid survey telescope on Haleakala, Hawaii, which is operated by the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy and funded by NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office. Scientists have yet to nail down its size, but say it's between 120 and 300 feet.
For more on Asteroid 2016 HO3, check out the video below.