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On March 4 at 11:25 a.m., a man-made object inadvertently crashes into the moon for the first time; a rocket remnant. We can’t see it from here because it’s happening on the other side. The consequences for the moon will be zero, given all the craters that characterize the landscape, you are used to it.
If the event has a tangible impact anywhere, it will be here on Earth. Because the responsibility for the piece of space debris is disputed. Astronomer Bill Gray was the first to discover that space debris would collide with the moon. He said it was probably a leftover part of a missile would be from SpaceX – the company of billionaire Elon Musk.
However, a NASA engineer pointed out to him that this could not be true: according to him, it must be a Chinese-made launcher. In 2014, China launched the Chang’e 5-T1 unmanned mission. The launch vehicle was then launched into high Earth orbit and is now heading for the moon, according to NASA. But China denies this: “According to Chinese monitoring, the Chang’e 5 rocket safely reached Earth’s atmosphere, where it completely burned out.”
space debris
University of Arizona PhD students confirmed the findings from NASA. The object’s color spectrum matches a Chinese rocket, not a SpaceX rocket.
Also Bill Gray, the discoverer of the drifting missile, is now convinced of Chinese origin. Gray says he’s the only one using homemade software to track this type of debris, which is above Earth. Space agencies pay little attention to it, because this debris poses no risk to the Earth, unlike debris in low orbit. Still, Gray hopes this event will bring more attention to space junk in general.
China also has experience of uncontrollably falling space debris to Earth. In these cases, the Chinese often try to mitigate risk and personal liability. In May last year, the remains of a Chinese Long March 5B rocket led to warnings from international space experts†
It was one of the largest pieces of space junk to enter Earth’s atmosphere uncontrollably in three decades. It was unclear if the rocket lacked the technology to crash into Earth in a controlled manner, or if it malfunctioned. China called the warnings “Western hype” and alarmism.
There was a good chance he would dive into the sea – he did finally too – or on uninhabited land, but there was certainly danger. A year earlier there was still a piece of the same kind of rocket in a cheese dairy in Ivory Coast which has led to strong criticism from the West over China’s handling of space debris.
crater
In 2018, China’s Tiangong-1 space station fell out of control after China was unable to connect to the space station in 2016. However, China didn’t want to hear the term “out of control”.
The piece of space junk heading for the moon will cause fewer problems. The object weighs about four tons and hits the moon at more than 9,000 kilometers per hour. This will leave a crater, just like when NASA deliberately crashed a vehicle into the moon in 2009. Then a crater with a diameter of 28 meters was formed.
Compared to the impact of much heavier and faster natural space objects like meteorites, the impact on the moon probably feels like nothing more than a bullet against the cheek.
