Science
SpaceX Rocket Junk on Course to Hit the Moon, Astronomers Predict
Part of a SpaceX rocket that was launched seven years ago and was abandoned in space after its mission will crash into the moon in March, experts say.
Deployed in 2015, the rocket put a NASA satellite called the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) into orbit.
Since then, the rocket’s second stage, or booster, has been floating in what mathematicians call a chaotic orbit, astronomer Bill Gray told AFP on Wednesday. Gray calculated the new collision course of the space junk with the moon.
Gray said the booster came very close to the moon during a rendezvous in January, changing its orbit.
He’s behind Project Pluto, software that calculates the trajectories of asteroids and other space objects and is used in NASA-funded space observation programs. A week after the rocket stage approached the moon, Gray looked again and concluded that it would crash into the dark side of the moon at speeds in excess of 5,500 mph (9,000 km/h) on March 4.
Gray called on the community of amateur astronomers to join him in observing the booster, and his conclusions were confirmed.
The exact time and location of the impact may be slightly different from his predictions, but it is widely believed that there will be a collision on the moon that day.
“I’ve been tracking this type of junk for about 15 years,” Gray told AFP. “This is the first unintentional lunar impact we’ve ever encountered.”
‘It’s time to start regulating’
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell told AFP that a similar impact could have happened unnoticed.
“In the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, there were at least 50 objects left in deep Earth orbit, just abandoned there. We didn’t track them,” he said.
“Now we’re looking for a few of them…but many of them we didn’t find, so they don’t exist anymore,” he added. “Probably at least a few of them hit the moon by accident, and we just didn’t notice.”
The impact of the 4-ton SpaceX rocket block on the moon will not be visible in real time from Earth.
But it will leave a crater that scientists will be able to observe using spacecraft and satellites (like NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter or India’s Chandrayaan-2) to learn more about the moon’s geology information.
Spacecraft have deliberately crashed into the moon before for scientific purposes, such as testing seismometers during the Apollo missions.
In 2009, NASA launched a rocket stage that hurled it toward the moon near the moon’s south pole in search of water.
But most rockets don’t get that far from Earth. SpaceX brings its rocket boosters back into Earth’s atmosphere, so they disintegrate over the ocean. The first stage is recycled and reused.
Gray said there could be more accidental falls to the moon in the future because the U.S. and Chinese space programs, in particular, have left more junk in orbit.
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Science
Nasa’s old map of Jupiter, which reminds many of dosa, has gone viral once more
Certain images or videos frequently resurface on the Internet, leaving people speechless. When those clips or pictures are shared again on one social media platform or another, they create a buzz. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) created and posted this image of a map of Jupiter online a few years ago. After being shared on Twitter, the image drew a lot of attention this time. And, as usual, the image made people think of dosa, a popular South Indian dish.
The image was shared by the Twitter account Latest in Space. “From the very bottom of Jupiter, I’m looking up. While tweeting the image, they wrote, “Seen by NASA Cassini.” The images from the Cassini spacecraft’s narrow-angle camera were used to create this out-of-this-world image, which is part of a coloured map series produced by the space agency.
The article was published a few days ago. The tweet has received nearly 20,000 likes since it was shared, and the number is growing. The tweet has been retweeted more than 2,000 times. Take a look at some of the comments to see how the image of Jupiter looks like dosa.
A Twitter user commented, “Looks like a designer dosa.” “When I rush to pick up a call, this is what happens to my dosa on the dosa pan,” one joked. “This is how my mother makes Dosa,” a third said. “Jupiter in the making,” wrote a fourth, along with a photo of someone preparing – you guessed it – dosa.
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