The New York Times (NYT) reported on the 26th (local time) that the top four rockets of the rocket launched by SpaceX of the United States seven years ago collided with the lunar surface on March 4, creating a crater with a diameter of 20 meters.
SpaceX is a space development company founded by Tesla founder Elon Musk and has a contract with NASA to send astronauts to the moon a few years later.
The New York Times reported that, according to observations and calculations by amateur astronomers, the impact is expected to occur on March 4 at 7:25 a.m. Eastern time. The exact time and location are not yet known, but the collision is certain. According to Bill Gray, developer of Project Pluto, a software that calculates .
“It is certain that there will be a collision, and within minutes and kilometers of the predicted time and place it will collide,” Gray said.
Most of the numerous devices launched into the solar system since the beginning of space exploration will never be seen again. The same is true of the SpaceX Falcon large rocket, which was first launched towards Mars in 2018. Some of the launched devices returned to Earth. Just as the mysterious object discovered in 2020 was later confirmed as a part of the lunar probe launched by NASA in 1966.
Gray has been tracking the top rocket of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, launched on February 11, 2015, aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Deep Space Climate Observation Satellite (DSCOVR) for several years. This satellite serves as an early warning of the danger to the Earth by observing energy molecules ejected from the sun from an orbit about 1.6 million km from Earth. It was a project led by Vice President Al Gore during his tenure, and he now regularly sends out full-screen images of the planet.
Falcon 9 top rockets are typically designed to put a load into orbit and then drop it back into Earth’s atmosphere. However, the rocket carrying the DSCOVR had to send the DSCOVR to a distant point out of orbit around the Earth. This meant that it would one day collide with the moon. The upper part of the Falcon 9 rocket is currently out of Earth’s control and is driven solely by Earth, Moon, the gravitational force of the Sun and the pressure of sunlight.
Fragments in orbit are closely tracked due to the risk of collisions with satellites or international spacecraft, but far-orbit objects such as DSCOVR rockets are not usually tracked. “As far as I know, no one has tracked me but me,” Gray said.
Many devices that have launched into the moon in the past have crashed on the moon, but this is the first time that an object that has not been launched from Earth has collided with the moon.
On the 5th, the Falcon 9 upper rocket passed about 9600 km from the moon. It is then expected that the moon will pass through a point closer to the moon next time due to the lunar gravity.
Gray asked amateur astronomers last week to watch the top rocket pass around Earth.
One of those who responded to the request, British Peter Bertwhistle, watched for several minutes on the 20th in his garden with a 16-inch (about 40 cm) diameter telescope passing the Earth rapidly.
Based on his observations, he calculated the orbit and predicted that it would collide with the moon. Next month, the last rocket passing by before it collides with the moon can be observed from Earth. After that, it will fall on the other side of the moon, which is invisible from Earth.
NASA’s lunar observing satellite will also be at a point where it cannot capture the moment of impact, but it can capture vivid images of the crater created by the impact behind it.
Mark Robinson, a professor of earth and space exploration at the University of Arizona, who is responsible for operating the lunar satellite’s camera, said that a metal object weighing 4 tons will collide at a speed of about 9173 km/h, creating a crater with a diameter of 10 to 20 meters. Unlike a meteorite impact, the exact time and location of the impact can be known. Meanwhile, the collision could help scientists find out what lies beneath the moon.
India’s Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft in lunar orbit, or other spacecraft launched toward the moon this year, are also likely to photograph the crash site. Unless these spacecraft unexpectedly create another crater on the moon.
[서울=뉴시스]
