A SpaceX rocket is on course to collide with the moon after seven years in space. According to experts, this will happen sometime in the coming weeks. It is known to be the first time space debris has landed on the moon unplanned.
SpaceX launched its first interplanetary mission nearly seven years ago. In 2015, the rocket was launched from Florida to launch a space satellite deep into space. The mission was successful; the satellite began its journey to about 1 million kilometers from Earth after launch.
The Falcon 9 rocket that launched the satellite was well past the moon at the time. There was no fuel to return, and the rocket also “didn’t have the energy to escape the gravitational pull of the Earth-moon system,” explained meteorologist Eric Berger in a recent report. message on Ars Technica. “So the rocket has been following a somewhat chaotic trajectory since February 2015,” Berger said. Recently it has become clear that it will hit the moon.
Because the object is spinning, it’s difficult to predict exactly what the effects of the sunlight “pushing” the rocket will be. This can cause changes in the trajectory of the rocket. “These unpredictable effects are very small,” reports Bill Gray, who writes software to track objects such as asteroids, minor planets and comets that are near Earth. In a recent blog post he writes that the rocket “flew close to the moon on January 5” and may “impact on March 4.”
First time
It is important for scientists to know exactly when the rocket will collide with the moon, so that they can monitor the effect of this. It’s probably the first time a piece of space debris has accidentally hit the moon. Usually, rockets that go this deep into space are sent into orbit around the sun after their mission. This keeps them away from the Earth and Moon.
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