Scientists say debris from a rocket used to help deploy satellites in 2015 is preparing to hit the moon in early March.
The object is used to boost a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket during its second stage flight. This leftover parts from spacecraft and equipment is called space junk.
The path of the rocket wreckage was first observed by American Bill Gray. He is an astronomer and founder of Project Pluto, based in the northern state of Maine. He develops and sells software that tracks the paths of different space objects, including space junk.
Gray has been posting information on the object’s path to the moon on the website. He said his information was based on his own observations as well as gleaned from others.
The object, which weighs about four tons, will hit the moon at 2.58 kilometers per second, he wrote. Gray said all of his data shows the rocket will hit the far side of the moon at 12:25 UTC on March 4. The other side of the moon faces away from Earth.
Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, along with NASA, also confirmed the expected strike. McDowell is with the Center for Astrophysics, run jointly by Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution in Massachusetts.
McDowell wrote in an online statement that in the past, “a lot of junk from lunar missions has ended up hitting the Moon.” But he noted that this is “the first time an accidental impact of an object not explicitly aimed at the Moon has been noticed. It.” McDowell tweeted that he found the expected strike “fun, but no big deal.”
Gray agreed, saying the moon is often hit by larger objects that move faster than the SpaceX rocket wreckage. That’s why the moon forms all the craters, he noted. “It can withstand this abuse very well,” Gray wrote.
There are about 30 to 50 “lost deep space objects,” like the long-missing SpaceX booster, some 50 years old, McDowell said. He added, “It may be that some of them landed on the moon without us noticing.”
McDowell said the debris of the SpaceX rocket is just one example of the growing problem and potential danger of space junk. “I think it’s time for the world to more seriously regulate and catalog deep space activities,” he wrote.
A NASA spokeswoman told AFP that the space agency viewed the expected strike as “an exciting research opportunity”. But she said finding the craters that formed could be difficult, taking “weeks to months”.
This is because the strike cannot be seen in real time from Earth. Additionally, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter — which is currently orbiting the moon — will not be able to observe the impact when it occurs, the spokesman said.
In the past, spacecraft have crashed into the moon for scientific experiments. But this may be the first unplanned strike identified in this way.
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