A SpaceX rocket is on a collision course with the moon after spending almost seven years hurtling through space, experts say.
The booster was originally launched from Florida in February 2015 as part of an interplanetary mission to send a space weather satellite on a journey of 1.6 million kilometers.
However, after completing a long burn of its engines and sending the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Deep Space Climate Observatory on its way to the so-called Lagrange point — a gravity-neutral position four times further than the moon and in direct line with the sun — the rocket’s second stage became derelict.
Photo: AP
At this stage, it was high enough that it did not have enough fuel to return to Earth’s atmosphere, but also “lacked the energy to escape the gravity of the Earth-moon system,” meteorologist Eric Berger wrote in a post on Ars Technica.
“So it has been following a somewhat chaotic orbit since February 2015,” Berger added.
Space observers believe the rocket — about 4 tonnes of “space junk” — is on course to intersect with the moon at a velocity of about 2.58 kilometers per second in a matter of weeks.
Bill Gray — who writes software to track near-Earth objects, asteroids, minor planets and comets — has said that the Falcon 9’s upper stage is likely to hit the far side of the moon, near the equator, on March 4.
The data analyst said in a blog post that the object “made a close lunar flyby on Jan. 5,” but is to make “a certain impact at March 4.”
“This is the first unintentional case [of space junk hitting the moon] of which I am aware,” Gray added.
The exact spot the rocket is to hit remains unclear due to the unpredictable effect of sunlight “pushing” on the rocket and “ambiguity in measuring rotation periods,” which might slightly alter its orbit.
“These unpredictable effects are very small. But they will accumulate between now and March 4,” Gray wrote, adding that further observations were needed to refine the precise time and location of the impact.
As for whether the collision could be viewed from Earth, Gray said that it would probably go unobserved.
“The bulk of the moon is in the way, and even if it were on the near side, the impact occurs a couple of days after New Moon,” he wrote.
Harvard University astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell wrote that the impact is due on March 4, but is “not a big deal.”
Nevertheless, space enthusiasts believe the impact could provide valuable data.
Berger believes that the event would allow for observation of subsurface material ejected by the rocket’s strike, while Gray said that he is “rooting for a lunar impact.”
“We already know what happens when junk hits the Earth; there’s not much to learn from that,” he said.
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
ICE DISPUTE: The Trump administration has sought to paint Good as a ‘domestic terrorist,’ insisting that the agent who fatally shot her was acting in self-defense Thousands of demonstrators chanting the name of the woman killed by a US federal agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota, took to the city’s streets on Saturday, amid widespread anger at use of force in the immigration crackdown of US President Donald Trump. Organizers said more than 1,000 events were planned across the US under the slogan “ICE, Out for Good” — referring to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is drawing growing opposition over its execution of Trump’s effort at mass deportations. The slogan is also a reference to Renee Good, the 37-year-old mother shot dead on Wednesday in her
RSS