A segment of a SpaceX rocket abandoned in space will crash into the Moon in March.
Washington:
On Thursday, NASA said it aims to survey the crater formed when the remains of a SpaceX rocket are expected to crash into the Moon in early March, calling the event “an opportunity.” interesting research.”
The rocket was deployed in 2015 to put a NASA satellite into orbit and its second stage, or booster, has been floating in space ever since, a fate common to those such space technology.
“According to its current orbit, the second phase is expected to impact the far side of the Moon on March 4, 2022,” a NASA spokesperson told AFP.
The impact of the 4-ton rocket mass will not be visible from Earth in real time, nor will NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), currently orbiting the Moon, will be “in position to observe the collision as it occurs,” the spokesman said.
However, LRO can be used later to take pictures for before and after comparison.
The spokesman said that finding the crater “will be challenging and could take weeks to months.”
The study of a crater formed by a damaged object of known mass and speed (it will travel at 9,000 kilometers per hour), as well as the material on which it is impacted, can be help advance selenium technology, or scientific research on the moon.
Spacecraft have deliberately crashed into the Moon before for scientific purposes, such as during the Apollo mission to check seismicity, but this is the first unintended collision detected.
Astronomer Bill Gray, who creates software used to determine the orbits of asteroids and other objects, was the first to calculate the rocket’s new collision path with the Moon. .
He believes that space junk should always head towards the moon when possible: “If it hits the moon, then we really learn something from it,” Gray said.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and was automatically generated from the feed provided.)
