The moon has a new double crater after a rocket body collided with its surface on March 4.
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 measuring 59 feet (18 meters) and a western crater covering 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 about to collide with the moon, the double crater it created was a surprise.
Exhaust rockets usually have the largest mass at the end of the engine, as 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 has been moving around for years, is unclear, so the double crater could help astronomers determine what it is.
The moon lacks a protective atmosphere, so it is dotted with craters created when objects such as asteroids regularly hit the surface.
This was the first time a piece of space debris had inadvertently hit the lunar surface that experts knew about. But the craters are the result of a deliberate collision of a spaceship in the moon.
For example, four large lunar craters attributed to the Apollo 13, 14, 15, and 17 missions are much larger than any of the overlapping craters created during the March 4 strike. However, the maximum width of the new double crater is similar to the craters of Apollo.
UNCLEAR ORIGIN
Bill Gray, an independent researcher focused on orbital dynamics and the developer of astronomical software, was the first to notice the trajectory of the rocket accelerator.
Gray initially identified it as the SpaceX Falcon rocket, which launched the US Deep Space Climate Observatory or DSCOVR in 2015, but later said he was wrong and probably from a 2014 Chinese lunar mission – an estimate with which NASA agreed with.
However, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied that the accelerator was from the Chang’e-5 lunar mission, saying that the rocket in question burned when it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere.
No agency has systematically tracked space debris so far from Earth, and confusion over the origin of the rocket phase has highlighted the need for official agencies to monitor debris more closely in deep space, rather than relying on the limited resources of individuals and scientists.
However, experts say the bigger challenge is space debris in low Earth orbit, an area where they could collide with working satellites, create more debris and endanger human life on a manned spacecraft.
There are at least 26,000 pieces of space debris orbiting the Earth that are the size of a softball or larger and can destroy a satellite on impact; more than 500,000 marble-sized objects large enough to cause damage to a spacecraft or satellites; and more than 100 million pieces the size of a grain of salt, small debris that could still pierce a spacesuit, according to a NASA report released last year.
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