Falcon 9 booster heading towards Moon captured in new image by astronomer

The Falcon 9 rocket, which was launched by SpaceX in 2015, is floating freely in space and is now on a collision course with the Moon. Several experts have estimated that the discarded rocket piece will hit the lunar surface on March 4 and thanks to the Italy-based Virtual Telescope Project 2.0, you can spot where it is now. Astronomer Gianluca Masi has captured an image of the drifting Falcon 9 booster which is moving at a speed of 2.58km/s.

Taking to Twitter, The Virtual Telescope shared a visual of the Falcon 9 booster which can be seen blinking as it tumbles towards the Moon. In an official report, the astronomer explained that the visual comes from a single 60-second exposure, remotely taken with the “Elena” robotic unit available at Virtual Telescope. "There was a very strong light plus Moon interference and grabbing DSCOVR booster was quite hard. We also noticed the booster is spinning fast (period of the order of 10 seconds), showing very brightness fluctuations", the report said. Gianluca Masi revealed that the space junk was just 3,00,000 km away at the time of the imaging.

Why is the space junk moving towards the Moon?

The space junk heading towards the Moon is actually of the Falcon 9 booster when it was launched to deliver NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, to the first Lagrange point in 2015.

The launch marked SpaceX's first interplanetary mission and was a successful one, although the booster ran out of fuel after leaving the Earth's atmosphere. What's more, is that it was unable to escape the gravity of the Earth and the Moon and has been floating between the two ever since it got deserted. 

Here's how to track the Falcon 9 booster live 

The Virtual Telescope is organising a live session on February 8 wherein it would stream the drifting of the Falcon 9 booster towards the Moon. The live streaming will be guided by Gianluca Masi starting 11:30 pm (IST) where the space junk would be tracked in real-time. In an interview with Gizmodo, Masi said, "Today and tomorrow it will be brighter and thus should be easier to see and be more spectacular". 

(Image: @VirtualTelescop/Twitter)