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Part of a rocket that’s been zipping through space for years is going to hit the Moon on Friday, and it will For the first time, a piece of space junk has inadvertently fallen on the lunar surface.
It is expected to hit the Moon around 7:26 a.m. at a speed of about 5,500 mph (8,851 kph), but the event will not be visible from Earth because The impact is expected on the far side of the Moon.
“If it were to be seen—which, sadly, it wouldn’t—you would see a big flash, and dust and disintegrated rocket bits and pebbles and boulders would be thrown, some of which would be for hundreds of kilometers,” said Bill Gray. he said. Independent researcher focused on orbital dynamics and developer of astronomical software. He was First to find the trajectory of the rocket booster.
One way Know where the rocket hits through the images. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will not be in a position to observe the impact as it happens, the agency said.
However, the orbiter’s mission team assessing whether Any changes in the lunar atmosphere associated with the impact can be observed and later the crater formed by the impact can be identified.
“This unique event presents an exciting research opportunity,” NASA said in an emailed statement.
“After the impact, the mission can use its cameras to identify the impact site, comparing older images with images taken after the impact. Exploring the impact crater will be challenging and will take weeks to months.” It may take time.
Gray said India’s Chandrayaan-2 orbiter may also be able to locate the impact crater, which can be up to 65 feet (20 meters) in diameter.
It would be far from the only crater on the Moon that has no protective atmosphere. This means that impact craters come naturally when they collide with objects like asteroids – which is a regular occurrence. Craters have also been the result of a spacecraft intentionally crashing into the Moon.
David Rothery, professor of planetary geosciences at The Open University in the United Kingdom, said biocontamination at the crash site is likely because rocket parts are not sterile upon launch.
“Most of the germs will be dead but maybe not all. They’re probably not going to breed, but it’s a very small risk,” he said.
The origin of the rocket part is unclear. Gray initially identified it as SpaceX Falcon Rocket Stage which launched the US Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, in 2015 but later Said he got it wrong And it was likely from the 2014 Chinese lunar mission – an assessment with which NASA agreed.
However, China’s Foreign Ministry denied The booster was telling its Chang’e-5 moon mission that The rocket in question burned up upon re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.
No agency systematically tracks space debris so far from Earth, and confusion over the origins of the rocket stage has prompted official agencies to monitor deep space junk more closely, rather than rely on the limited resources of private individuals and academics. The need has been underlined. ,
However, experts say space debris is the bigger challenge in low-Earth orbit, an area where it could collide with working satellites, creating more junk and threatening human life on crewed spacecraft. can cause.
There are at least 26,000 space junk orbiting Earth that are the size of a softball or larger and could destroy a satellite on impact; more than 500,000 objects the size of a marble – large enough to damage spacecraft or satellites; And according to a NASA report released last year, there are more than 100 million pieces the size of a grain of salt, tiny debris that can nonetheless puncture a spacesuit.