The moon explosion will cause a new crater to form, which NASA is excited to explore
Keep an eye towards the moon on March 4—a rocket is going to crash directly into it.
A rogue rocket is expected to crash into the moon on March 4, and NASA says it was launched by China.
At first, it seemed like the rocket was built by SpaceX, but Nasa then confirmed it was from a past Chinese lunar mission.
The rocket, which is said to be 2014-065B, the booster for the Chang’e 5-T1 that was launched in 2014 as a key part of the Chinese space agency’s lunar exploration program, will hit the moon at 7:26 am ET on March 4, so late afternoon in the Middle East.
It will be a bit hard to see though, because the impact will likely be on the far side of the moon—the dark side of the moon, if you will—and not visible to the human eye.
The rocket will likely disintegrate on impact, so point 1 to the moon, 0 to the rocket, is the expected final score of this encounter.
This will create a new crater on the moon, which expected to be 10 to 20 meters across.
The announcement was made by astronomer Bill Gray last weekend, who admitted his mistake that it wasn’t in fact Elon Musk’s fault, and is instead likely China’s.
“The object had about the brightness we would expect, and had showed up at the expected time and moving in a reasonable orbit,” Gray wrote.
“in hindsight, I should have noticed some odd things,” he said about the object’s orbit.
“This just emphasises the problem with lack of proper tracking of these deep space objects,” posted astronomer Jonathan McDowell.
NASA will also plan to study the new crater that will be caused by the object’s explosion, using the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
It’s an “exciting research opportunity”, according to NASA.
I guess it’s not every day that a rocket crashes into the moon. Silver linings, I suppose.
