![]() With no weather, there’s no erosion and so impact craters last forever.Ĭhina has a lunar lander on the moon’s far side, but it will be too far away to detect Friday’s impact just north of the equator. With little to no real atmosphere, the moon is defenseless against the constant barrage of meteors and asteroids, and the occasional incoming spacecraft, including a few intentionally crashed for science’s sake. The moon already bears countless craters, ranging up to 1,600 miles (2,500 kilometers). WATCH MORE: WATCH: SpaceX launches rocket with cargo of Christmas presents, supplies to station It’ll leave yet another small crater on the moon.” Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics supports Gray’s revised assessment, but notes: “The effect will be the same. “But I really just don’t see any way it could be anything else.” “I’ve become a little bit more cautious of such matters,” he said. Gray, a mathematician and physicist, said he’s confident now that it’s China’s rocket. “We focus on objects closer to the Earth,” a spokesperson said in a statement. But it could not confirm the country of origin for the object about to strike the moon. Space Command, which tracks lower space junk, confirmed Tuesday that the Chinese upper stage from the 2014 lunar mission never deorbited, as previously indicated in its database. READ MORE: China says SpaceX satellites nearly collided with its three-member crew space station observers believe the two are getting mixed up. But Chinese ministry officials said the upper stage had reentered Earth’s atmosphere and burned up.īut there were two Chinese missions with similar designations - the test flight and 2020’s lunar sample return mission - and U.S. Gray said it was likely the third stage of a Chinese rocket that sent a test sample capsule to the moon and back in 2014. He corrected himself a month later, saying the “mystery” object was not a SpaceX Falcon rocket upper stage from the 2015 launch of a deep space climate observatory for NASA. SpaceX originally took the rap for the upcoming lunar litter after asteroid tracker Bill Gray identified the collision course in January. Objects launching deeper into space are unlikely to hit anything and these far-flung pieces are usually soon forgotten, except by a handful of observers who enjoy playing celestial detective on the side. Low-orbiting space junk is relatively easy to track. No matter whose it is, scientists expect the object to carve out a hole 33 feet to 66 feet (10 to 20 meters) across and send moon dust flying hundreds of miles (kilometers) across the barren, pockmarked surface. WATCH MORE: NASA’s new Webb space telescope opens its golden ‘eye’ But Chinese officials are dubious it’s theirs. It’s been tumbling haphazardly through space, experts believe, since China launched it nearly a decade ago. It may take weeks, even months, to confirm the impact through satellite images. ![]() The leftover rocket will smash into the far side of the moon at 5,800 mph (9,300 kph) on Friday, away from telescopes’ prying eyes. (AP) - The moon is about to get walloped by 3 tons of space junk, a punch that will carve out a crater that could fit several semitractor-trailers. ![]()
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