Moon to get struck by rogue rocket at 9,300 kmph on March 4; Know all about it

A rogue rocket piece has been the centre of attention for the past few weeks as it is on its way to crashing into the Moon. The collision is expected to occur on March 4 at around 5:55 pm IST and experts say that the crash would carve a wide crater on the lunar surface. The Virtual Telescope Project even shared a picture of the rocket piece spotted recently. While it nears toward the lunar surface, here’s all you need to know about the 3-ton space junk. 

Origins of the space junk remains disputed

While the origin of this rocket hunk is disputed, asteroid tracker Bill Gray says that it belongs to a Chinese rocket. According to Gray, the potential impactor is a leftover of the three-stage Long March 3C rocket which was launched in 2014 under the Chang'e 5-T1 mission. Initially, Gray had suggested that the rocket was a SpaceX Falcon 9’s booster that failed to return to Earth in 2015 after sending the NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory to the Lagrange point. This theory was soon rejected after NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) engineer Jon Giorgini pointed out that the rocket's trajectory does not match the Falcon 9 booster's but something else's.

After the discovery of this anomaly, Gray did follow-up calculations and concluded that it indeed is part of the Chinese rocket. China, however, has rejected these reports and allegations that the rocket piece in conversation had re-entered the atmosphere and burned up. Countering China's claims, the U.S.Space Command, which tracks lower space junk, confirmed on Tuesday that the Chinese upper stage from the 2014 lunar mission never deorbited. The country of origin of this space junk, however, still remains disputed. 

What happens next?

Gray is certain that the collision will transpire on Friday and the rocket piece will strike the far side of the Moon, the side which cannot be seen from Earth. Measuring 40 feet long and 10 feet in diameter, the massive space junk is moving at a speed of 9,300 kilometres per hour and will crash on the Hertzsprung Crater creating 33 feet to 66 feet hole of its own.

"I had been hoping for something (significant) to hit the moon for a long time. Ideally, it would have hit on the near side of the moon at some point where we could actually see it", Gray said as per the Associated Press. 

Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics highlights the problem of rising space debris and suggests keeping track of them. McDowell, however, says that tracking deep space mission leftovers like this is hard because the moon’s gravity can create uncertainty by altering an object’s path during flybys. Meanwhile, NASA is preparing to explore the crater, that is likely to be created by the rocket piece, using its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

Image: Unsplash