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A rocket part that’s been careering around space for years is set to collide with the moon on Friday, marking the first time a chunk of space junk has unintentionally caused a moon crash by slamming into the lunar surface. However, the orbiter’s mission team is assessing whether observations can be made of any changes to the lunar environment associated with the moon crash and later identify the crater formed by the impact.
“This unique event presents an exciting research opportunity,” NASA said in an emailed statement. “Following the moon crash, the mission can use its cameras to identify the impact site, comparing older images to images taken after the moon crash. Searching for the impact crater will be challenging and might take weeks to months.”
India’s Chandrayaan-2 orbiter may also be able to locate the moon crash crater, which could be up to 65 feet (20 meters) in diameter, Gray said. It will be far from the only crater on the moon crash site, which has no protective atmosphere. This means craters from moon crashes and natural impacts occur regularly.
There is a possibility of biocontamination at the moon crash site, since rocket parts aren’t sterile when launched, said David Rothery, a professor of planetary geosciences at The Open University in the United Kingdom. “Most microbes will have died, but maybe not all. They’re probably not going to reproduce, but it’s a very small risk,” he said.
The origin of the rocket part involved in this moon crash is unclear. Gray had initially identified it as the SpaceX Falcon rocket stage that launched the US Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, in 2015 but later said he’d gotten that wrong. China’s space agency denied the booster was from its Chang’e-5 moon mission, saying that the rocket in question burned up on reentry to Earth’s atmosphere.
No agencies systematically track space debris so far away from Earth, and the confusion over the origin of the moon crash rocket stage has underscored the need for official agencies to monitor deep-space junk more closely, rather than relying on the limited resources of private individuals and academics.
However, experts say the bigger challenge is the space debris in low-Earth orbit, an area where it can collide with functioning satellites, create more junk, and threaten human life on crewed spacecraft. There are at least 26,000 pieces of space junk orbiting Earth that are the size of a softball or larger and could destroy a satellite on impact; over 500,000 objects the size of a marble — big enough to cause damage to spacecraft or satellites; and over 100 million pieces the size of a grain of salt, tiny debris that could nonetheless puncture a spacesuit, according to a NASA report issued last year.
00:00 Filming the moon
00:13 Out of control rocket moving towards the moon
00:22 Out of control rocket booster crashes into moon
00:24 rocket crashes into moon
00:30 march 4 2022 moon crash See my channel description for important details about how I create my content.
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