Photo When space debris crashed into the moon earlier this year, it made not one but two craters on the lunar surface, according to images revealed by NASA on Friday.
Astronomers have predicted that a mysterious object will hit the moon on March 4, after tracking the debris for months. The site is large and is believed to have been used by the Chinese National Space Administration’s Long March 3C rocket, which launched the Chang’e 5-T1 spacecraft in 2014.
The details are unclear. Space agencies tend to monitor debris closer to home and don’t actually watch what other planetary objects may be dumping. It was difficult to confirm the nature of the crash; experts believe it will likely leave a crater behind. Now NASA’s lunar reconnaissance orbiter (LRO) has noticed telltale signs of a surface impact. Photographs taken by the probe reveal a strange hole shaped like a peanut shell on the surface of the moon, probably caused by Chinese garbage.
Peanut-like craters … Image Credit: NASA / Goddard / Arizona State University
“Surprisingly, the crater is actually two craters, an eastern crater (18 meters in diameter, about 19.5 yards) superimposed on a western crater (16 meters in diameter, about 17.5 yards),” NASA said. As far as we know, no other lunar rocket collision has created two craters. The strange moat suggests that whatever hit the moon had a special structure.
“The double crater was unexpected and may indicate that the body of the rocket has large masses at each end. Usually the spent rocket has a mass concentrated at the end of the engine; the rest of the rocket stage consists mainly of an empty fuel tank. From the beginning, the body of the rocket remains uncertain, the dual nature of the crater may show its identity, “added the US space agency.
Bill Gray, a software developer for professional astronomers who first predicted the impact, mistakenly believed that the object was a deceptive part of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which launched NASA’s climate observatory into deep space. He later changed his mind and still believes it was from China’s Long March 3C rocket.
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“I’m a little puzzled by the appearance of the double crater. But I am by no means an expert on high-speed strikes, except that I know that they can have very strange results. In any case, I am very pleased that the LRO people were able to find out, “he said.
“I can’t say that the double crater proves things in one way or another,” he told The Register. “It’s a headache. I don’t think that will tell us anything about whether this is the Chang’e 5-T1 amplifier. In principle, we have this from other information. And selenologists, who know a lot more about crater formation than I do, can come up with a completely different reason for how a perfectly normal bit of rocket hardware can generate double craters. “
Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, denied that the piece of space debris was from the rocket that launched the Chang’e 5 spacecraft in 2020. “According to Chinese observation, the upper stage of the Chang’e-5 rocket mission is fell through the Earth’s atmosphere in a safe way and burned completely, “he said earlier in a statement.
But this rocket is not the same one that astronomers believe hit the moon. Gray believes it is from a different vehicle that launched the Chang’e 5-T1 spacecraft in 2014. His predictions of where the object could hit the moon deviated by several kilometers. “The actual location of the impact was uncertain by about ten kilometers, largely because our last observations were made about four weeks before the impact,” he said.
“The problem was that spaceships and space debris are pushed gently by sunlight, in a way that depends on how objects are oriented as they roll over. It’s a small boost, but over the four weeks we knew he could push objections a mile or so in one direction or another. It’s a bit like predicting where an empty garbage bag will go in a windstorm. You know it will be blown away by the wind, but not exactly where it is “I’ll go.” ®
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