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.
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
A shark attack off Egypt’s Red Sea coast killed a tourist and injured another, authorities said on Sunday, with an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source identifying both as Italian nationals. “Two foreigners were attacked by a shark in the northern Marsa Alam area, which led to the injury of one and the death of the other,” the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said in a statement. A source at the Italian foreign ministry said that the man killed was a 48-year-old resident of Rome. The injured man was 69 years old. They were both taken to hospital in Port Ghalib, about 50km north
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland on Tuesday expressed concern about “the political crisis” in Georgia, two days after Mikheil Kavelashvili was formally inaugurated as president of the South Caucasus nation, cementing the ruling party’s grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country’s EU aspirations and a victory for former imperial ruler Russia. “We strongly condemn last week’s violence against peaceful protesters, media and opposition leaders, and recall Georgian authorities’ responsibility to respect human rights and protect fundamental freedoms, including the freedom to assembly and media freedom,” the three ministers wrote in a joint statement. In reaction
BARRIER BLAME: An aviation expert questioned the location of a solid wall past the end of the runway, saying that it was ‘very bad luck for this particular airplane’ A team of US investigators, including representatives from Boeing, on Tuesday examined the site of a plane crash that killed 179 people in South Korea, while authorities were conducting safety inspections on all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s airlines. All but two of the 181 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 operated by South Korean budget airline Jeju Air died in Sunday’s crash. Video showed the aircraft, without its landing gear deployed, crash-landed on its belly and overshoot a runaway at Muan International Airport before it slammed into a barrier and burst into flames. The plane was seen having engine trouble.
RSS