প্রকাশ: 27/01/2022
A chunk of a SpaceX rocket that blasted off seven years ago
and was abandoned in space after completing its mission will crash into the
Moon in March, experts say.
The rocket was deployed in 2015 to put into orbit a NASA
satellite called the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR).
Since then, the second stage of the rocket, or booster, has
been floating in what mathematicians call a chaotic orbit, astronomer Bill Gray
told Wednesday.
It was Gray who calculated the space junk's new collision
course with the Moon.
The booster passed quite close to the Moon in January in a
rendezvous that altered its orbit, said Gray.
He is behind Project Pluto, software that allows for
calculating the trajectory of asteroids and other objects in space and is used
in NASA-financed space observation programs.
A week after the
rocket stage whizzed close to the Moon, Gray observed it again and concluded it
would crash into the Moon's dark side on March 4 at more than 5,500 miles per
hour (9,000 kilometers per hour).
Gray appealed to the
amateur astronomer community to join him in observing the booster, and his
conclusion was confirmed.
The exact time and
spot of impact may change slightly from his forecast but there is widespread
agreement that there will be a collision on the Moon that day.
"I've been
tracking junk of this sort for about 15 years. And this is the first
unintentional lunar impact that we've had," Gray told.
- 'Time to start
regulating' -
Astronomer Jonathan
McDowell told that it's possible similar impacts have taken place unnoticed.
"There're at least 50 objects that were left in deep Earth orbit in the
'60s, '70s and '80s that were just abandoned there. We didn't track them,"
he said.
"Now we're
picking up a couple of them... but a lot of them we're not finding and so
they're not there anymore," he added. "Probably at least a few of
them hit the moon accidentally and we just didn't notice."
The impact of the
SpaceX rocket chunk weighing four tons on the Moon will not be visible from
Earth in real time.
But it will leave a
crater that scientists will be able to observe with spacecraft and satellites
like NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter or India's Chandrayaan-2, and thus
learn more about the geology of the Moon.
Spacecraft have been
intentionally crashed into the Moon before for scientific purposes, such as
during the Apollo missions to test seismometers.
In 2009, NASA sent a rocket stage hurling into
the Moon near its south pole to look for water.
But most rockets do not go so far from Earth. SpaceX brings
its rocket boosters back through the Earth's atmosphere so they disintegrate
over the ocean. The first stage is recovered and reused.
Gray said there could
be more unintentional crashes into the Moon in the future as the US and Chinese
space programs in particular leave more junk in orbit.
The US together with
international partners is already planning a space station to orbit the Moon.
McDowell noted these
events "start to be problematic when there's a lot more traffic."
"It's actually no one's job to keep track of the junk
that we leave out in deep earth orbit," he added. "I think now's the
time to start regulating it."
Elon Musk's company is currently developing a lunar lander
that should allow NASA to send astronauts back to the Moon by 2025 at the
earliest.
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