NASA photographed the crash site of the mysterious rocket that crashed on the far side of the moon in March, and the unidentified spacecraft left behind a strange double crater that baffled scientists.
Images of the crash site were captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) on May 25 and chest On June 24. The images show that the missing wreck (whose origins are still disputed) somehow caused two overlapping holes when it collided with the other side of the ship. the moon Traveling at 5,770 mph (9,290 km/h).
Unexpected double wells add an extra layer of weirdness to the puzzle that has baffled space watchers since JanuaryWhen Bill Gray, an American astronomer and software developer who tracks near-Earth objects, predicted that a piece of orbital space junk would collide with the other side of the moon within months, Live Science previously reported. When Gray discovered the wreckage, he suggested that this was the second stage of the Falcon X rocket that Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched in 2015. But subsequent observations and analyzes of orbital data indicated that the object was Passed the upper stage of the Chinese Chang’e 5-T1 missilespace ship (Named after the Chinese goddess of the moon) Which was launched in 2014. However, the Chinese authorities did not agree, claiming that the upper stage of this missile burned out. a land Joseph years ago.
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So far, at least 47 NASA rocket objects have landed on the moon’s surface, according to Arizona State UniversityBut the ‘double crater was unexpected’ NASA wrote in a statement. “No other rocket objects on the Moon have produced double craters.”
Although scientists were unable to directly observe the moment of impact, experts predicted that the neglected rocket stage hit the lunar surface at Hertzsprung crater on the far side of the moon, on March 4 at 7:25 a.m. EDT (12:25 a.m. evening). GMT). LRO observations show a waning moon – the eastern crater is 18 meters wide and the western crater is 16 meters wide. If NASA’s LRO had been positioned to capture images of the collision, it would likely have documented a cloud of lunar dust hundreds of kilometers high.
Scientists are still hypothesizing what may have caused the two craters. NASA officials said one possibility is that the craters formed from a piece of debris that had two large masses at either end – although this scenario is unusual.
“The spent rocket mass is usually concentrated at the end of the engine, while the remainder of the rocket stage consists mostly of an empty fuel tank,” the statement said.
Is it really the Chang’e 5-T1 booster?
Since the booster rocket will likely disintegrate completely upon impact, it is uncertain whether investigation of the craters will provide important clues to its controversial source. But some astronomers believe that most of the mystery has already been solved. grey wrote on your blog Shortly after the images were published, the object was conclusively identified as the Chang’e 5-T1 capacitor.
“I’m absolutely convinced it couldn’t be anything else,” Gray told Live Science. “At this point, we rarely have anything certain.”
Gray made his first prediction that controversial debris would collide with the Moon after it was seen falling into space in March 2015. The object (designated with the provisional name WE0913A) was first illuminated by the Catalina Sky Survey, a group of telescopes. Near Tucson, Arizona, which is scanning our cosmic neighborhood for dangerous asteroids that could collide with Earth. However, WE0913A was not around the sunas such asteroid But instead it was orbiting the Earth. Gray suspects that the corpse is man-made.
After misidentifying the mysterious trash as a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Gray returned to the data to discover that another spacecraft was close to the debris path bound for the moon: the upper stage of China’s Chang’e 5-T1 mission, which launched in October. 2014 as part of an initial mission to send a test capsule to the Moon and back.
Chinese Foreign Ministry officials have denied that the space junk is theirs, insisting that the Chang’e 5 rocket did indeed burn up on the return trip to Earth in 2014. A similar rocket. From the 2020 mission, this moon hit for the first time. On March 1, the US Department of Defense’s Space Command, which tracks space junk in low Earth orbit, issued a statement They say that the 2014 Chinese missile did not de-orbit.
Gray believes that its orbit data, an almost perfect match with the initial trajectory of the Chinese missile, is crucial.
There are a huge number of lunar missions in orbit; Its inclination means that in the past it was destined for China; It was heading east in the same way as the Chinese lunar missions; “The estimated launch time is within 20 minutes of the Chang’e 5-T1 missile,” Gray said.
An amateur radio satellite (or “Cubesat”) was connected to Chang’e 5-T1 during the first 19 days of its flight, and trajectory data sent from that satellite matched exactly with the current trajectory of the missile debris, according to Gray. . Others have also identified important evidence supporting Gray’s conclusion; NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Center for Near-Earth Object Studies has confirmed Gray’s analysis of orbital data, and a team at the University of Arizona identified the rocket as part of the Chang’e 5-T1 mission by analyzing the spectrum of light reflected by coatings on the scattered rubble. .
While this is the first unwanted portion of spaceflight to inadvertently crash into the moon, it isn’t the first time a satellite has crashed there. In 2009, NASA’s Crater Detection and Monitoring satellite was intentionally launched into the moon’s south pole at 9,000 km/h, releasing a plume that allows scientists to detect chemical fingerprints of water ice. NASA also got rid of Apollo Saturn 5 rockets by launching them on the Moon.
Gray said the confusion surrounding an object’s identity highlights a real need for space agencies and private companies everywhere to develop better procedures for tracking the rockets they send into deep space (which would also prevent these objects from being confused with Earth-threatening asteroids). . .
“From my selfish point of view, this will help us better track asteroids,” Gray said. “The sponsorship for LEO satellites hasn’t been applied to LEO satellites because people have figured out that doesn’t really matter. And I hope that now the United States will think about going back to the moon and other countries that are sending things there as well, and that may change. The situation. “.
Originally published on Live Science.
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