New images shared by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting the Moon since 2009, have revealed the location of the unusual crater.
The impact created two overlapping craters, an eastern crater 59 feet (18 meters) wide and a western crater 52.5 feet (16 meters). Together, they create a depression that is approximately 91.8 feet (28 meters) wide in the longest dimension.
Although astronomers expected the impact after discovering that part of the rocket was going to collide with the Moon, the double crater it created was a surprise.
Normally, worn-out rockets have more mass at the engine end because the rest of the rocket is largely just an empty fuel tank. But the double crater suggests that this object had large masses at both ends when it hit the Moon.
The exact origin of the rocket’s body, a piece of space debris that had been kept for years, is unclear, so the double crater could help astronomers determine what it was.
The moon does not have a protective atmosphere, so it is full of craters created when objects such as asteroids regularly collide on the surface.
This was the first time a piece of space debris accidentally hit the lunar surface that experts know. But craters have been the result of the deliberate crashing of spacecraft on the Moon.
For example, 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 that of the Apollo craters.
Unclear origin
Bill Gray, an independent researcher focused on orbital dynamics and astronomer software developer, was the first to detect the trajectory of the propellant rocket.
Gray had initially identified it as the stage of the SpaceX Falcon rocket launched by the U.S. Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, in 2015, but later said he was wrong and probably it was from a 2014 Chinese lunar mission, an assessment agreed to by NASA. However, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied that the propellant was off its mission to the moon Chang’e-5, saying the rocket in question burned when re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. .
No agency has systematically tracked space debris so far from Earth, and confusion about the origin of the rocket stage has underscored the need for official agencies to monitor the deep space debris more closely, in instead of relying on the limited resources of individuals and academics. .
However, experts say the biggest challenge is spacecraft in low Earth orbit, an area where they can collide with satellites in operation, create more garbage and threaten human life in manned spacecraft.
There are at least 26,000 pieces of space debris orbiting the Earth that are the size of a softball or more and could destroy a satellite on impact; more than 500,000 objects the size of a marble, large enough to cause damage to spacecraft or satellites; and more than 100 million pieces the size of a grain of salt, small remnants that could nevertheless pierce a space suit, according to a NASA report issued last year.