It was on the morning of Friday, March 4, at 7:25 Colombian time, 12:25 GMT. Nobody saw it. Nobody listened. He left no trace. There is no evidence. Yet. A rocket collided, at high speeds, with the hidden face of the Moon, and without control.
It was a part of a vehicle that is believed to have been in Earth orbit since 2014, although its origin is not exactly clear.
Initially, it had been said that it was one of SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space travel company, but this information was denied.
The last thing that was known is that, apparently, it was a Long March 3C rocket, booster of the Chang’e 5-T1 lunar mission launched in 2014, although China also denied this, saying that the upper stage had re-entered the atmosphere. and had been burned in its path.
Still, the astronomer who made the calculation, Bill Gray, says that China mixed up the parts of the rocket and that he is 99.9% sure that it is the Chang’e 5-T1.
Although no space agency has confirmed the collision with the Moon, the community of astronomers that has followed up on the case believes that it did happen and that they may have confirmation in the coming days or weeks.
Why didn’t anyone see it?
It was not a danger, because although it was going at high speed (2.6 kilometers per second), the crater it left behind was expected to be only 19 meters in diameter. It had an estimated weight of three tons.
But it happened on the hidden side of the Moon that is not visible from Earth, specifically in the Hertzsprung crater.
Will there be confirmation?
Although the crater was small, it is an example of what will continue to happen if space debris continues to contaminate Earth’s near and far orbit. According to the European Space Agency, there are 36,500 pieces of space debris larger than 10 cm.
And while some monitor or report how many obsolete or non-functioning parts are wandering through space, There is no one to track or collect this space debris, so there is a constant risk that it will lose control and collide with the Earth, the Moon or other stars. They might even collide with the International Space Station or a satellite and damage them.
Those who track down these pieces, as was the case in this case, are some amateur astronomers and scientists, volunteers, who offer their time and resources to make calculations of some rockets or debris and estimate their orbits.
So there was also initial confusion regarding the rocket’s original owner. Because there was no way to be sure of the emergence of the rocket but they had to reconstruct its path, track its route, and assume or create close guesses.
For now, astronomers hope to confirm, in a few days or weeks, whether the uncontrolled crash occurred and what the crater was like as a result.
