A spacecraft that will hit the lunar surface in early March did not come from a Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX launched in 2015, but corresponds to an object discarded by a Chinese ship, as rectified on Monday by astronomer Bill Gray.
Gray, who developed software to track the trajectory of near-Earth objects, was the main astronomer to predict that the space object 2015-007B belonging to SpaceX would impact the Earth satellite.
However, the expert corrected his own information after his colleague Jon Giorgioni notified him that the initially calculated trajectory did not match that of the Falcon 9 spacecraft, so there was a possibility that it was another object.
After reviewing files and background, Gray concluded that the object that will impact the Earth satellite is actually the Chinese rocket 2014-065B, which had been sent in 2014 as part of the Change’s5-T1 lunar mission. The detail of how he arrived at this new result was published on the Pluto Project website.
Another crater for the Moon
It will not be the first time that a space object has crashed into the Moon, but it will be the first artifact of a ship that hits it unintentionally, Gray explained.
According to experts, it is likely that these types of events will continue to occur as space debris is generated. The main critics point to companies like SpaceX of the multimillionaire of South African origin, Elon Musk, that generate a large amount of space debris that could potentially impact other celestial bodies.
The next impact on the lunar surface could generate a crater of about 19 meters in diameter, although this would not cause significant damage to the satellite. In any case, what astronomers are sure of this time is that the space artifact in question will hit the Moon on March 4, 2022 at 12:15 UTC. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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