A SpaceX The rocket is on a collision course with the moon after spending nearly seven years gliding through space, experts say.
The amplifier is Originally launched from Florida in February 2015 as part of an interplanetary mission to send a space weather satellite on a million-mile journey.
But after the engine caught fire for a long time and sent the NOAA Space Climate Observatory on its way to Lagrange Point – gravity-neutral position four times farther from the moon and directly parallel to the sun – the second stage of the rocket became derelict.
At this stage it is high enough that it does not have enough fuel to return to Earth’s atmosphere but also “lack of energy to escape the gravity of the Earth-Moon system”, meteorologist Eric Berger explained in a recent post on Ars Technica.
“So it’s been following a rather chaotic orbit since February 2015,” Berger added.
Space observers believe the rocket – about four metric tons of “space junk” – is on track to intersect with the moon at a speed of about 2.58 km/s in a matter of weeks.
Bill Gray, who writes software to track near-Earth objects, asteroids, minor planets and comets, said Falcon 9’s upper stage will most likely hit the far side of the moon, near the equator, on March 4.
Data analyst said in a recent blog Pos that the object “makes a near lunar flyby on January 5th” but will make “certain impact on March 4th”.
“This is the first accidental case [of space junk hitting the moon] which I realized, ”added Gray.
The exact place where the rocket will hit remains unclear due to the unexpected effect of the sun’s “pushing” on the rocket and the “ambiguity in measuring the rotation period” which may slightly alter its orbit.
“This unexpected effect is very small. But they will accumulate between now and March 4th,” Gray wrote, adding that further observations are needed to fix the exact timing and location of the impact.
As to whether the collision could be seen from Earth, Gray said it might not be observable.
“Most of the moon is in the way, and even if it’s on the near side, the impact occurs a few days after New Moon.”
Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at Harvard University, wrote that the impact would occur on March 4 but “no big deal”.
For those asking: yes, the old Falcon 9’s second stage remaining in high orbit in 2015 will hit the moon on March 4. It’s interesting, but not a big deal.
— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) January 25, 2022
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Growth, space enthusiasts believe that the impact can provide valuable data.
Berger believes the event will allow observations of subsurface material ejected by rocket strikes, while Gray said he was “looking for lunar impacts”.
“We already know what happens when trash hits Earth; There’s not much to learn from it,” he said.
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