An unknown rocket crashed into the moon: no country on Earth wants to take responsibility for it

On March 4, a rocket that NASA had been tracking in space since 2015 crashed into the Moon. Its exact origin is still unclear. Snob.

Photo: Shutterstock

New images provided by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting the Moon since 2009, have revealed the location of an unusual crater. CNN.

There is speculation that the rocket is related to China's 2014 lunar mission. However, China disputes this, stating that the booster "safely entered the Earth's atmosphere and burned up completely."

Astronomer Bill Gray, who created software for tracking objects in space, was the first to notice the trajectory of a rocket booster. He first identified it as the SpaceX Falcon rocket stage that launched the US Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, but later claimed he was wrong.

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According to the astronomer, the object is the third stage of the Chinese Long March-3C rocket. This is also supported by the fact that while China announces and televises its launches, it does not disclose the routes.

clash

The collision was unlike anything seen before. As a result, two craters with diameters of 18 and 16 meters were formed at once. Together they create a depression approximately 28 meters wide.

Although astronomers expected to hit after discovering that part of the rocket was on its way to colliding with the moon, the double crater it formed came as a surprise.

"This may indicate that the rocket had large masses at each end: typically, a spent rocket has mass concentrated at the end of the engine, and the rest of the stage is mostly empty fuel tank," NASA said.

The exact origin of the rocket body, a piece of space debris that has been flying around for years, is unclear, so the double crater could help astronomers determine what it was.

The Moon lacks a protective atmosphere, so it is littered with craters formed when objects like asteroids regularly crash into the surface.

For example, the four large lunar craters attributed to the Apollo 13, 14, 15, and 17 missions are much larger than each of the overlapping craters created during the March 4 impact. However, the maximum width of the new double crater is similar to the Apollo craters.

Space junk

No agency systematically tracks space debris this far from Earth, and confusion over the origin of a rocket stage highlights the need for official agencies to keep a closer eye on debris in deep space rather than relying on the limited resources of individuals and scientists. .

However, experts say the bigger problem is space debris in low Earth orbit, where it can collide with functioning satellites, create more debris and threaten the lives of people on crewed spacecraft.

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Orbiting the Earth are at least 26 pieces of space debris the size of a softball or larger, which can destroy a satellite on impact; more than 000 ball-sized objects - big enough to cause damage to spacecraft or satellites; and more than 500 million pieces the size of a grain of salt, tiny pieces of debris that can still pierce a spacesuit, according to a NASA report released last year.

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