The mystery continues piece of space junk what will crash into the moon. It was first thought that it was the second phase of a SpaceX Falcon 9. Later, the same scientists who made that prediction corrected it, assuring that in reality the trajectory was much more in line with that of a chinese rocket what was sent into space in 2014. However, the Asian country now assures that the rocket to which they refer once re-entered our atmosphere and was totally incinerated, so it cannot remain wandering in space.
With these statements, issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Chinese and broadcast by media such as ScienceAlertthe mystery returns to the starting point.
We just know that the impact, if all goes according to plan, will be the next March 4 at 12:25 UTC. That is, at 1:25 p.m., Spanish peninsular time, and 6:25 a.m. in Mexico City. And also that neither the Moon nor our planet will be in any danger. It’s a relief, of course.
The Chinese Moon Rocket Theory
Bill Gray is an astrophysicist specializing in tracking near-Earth objects, better known as NEO’s. It was he who first detected an object, which he called WE0913Awhich seemed to be going straight for the Moon.
The finding occurred on March 14, 2015, a month after SpaceX launched the observation satellite into space Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR). The boost was given by a two-stage Falcon 9, as has become very common in its missions. The problem was that an incident with the second stage fuel prevented its re-entry into the atmosphere. This is what has become usual. They return to our planet and when they cross the atmosphere they burn, falling as small fragments, generally innocuous. In this case it could not be, so it was left wandering through space, turned into space junk.
Once it was discovered that WE0913A was not an asteroid or a comet, Gray and his colleagues thought that it could be precisely that fragment of the Space X Falcon 9. They made it known to the world by announcing that it would hit the Moon.
However, as the impact date approached, doubts began to arise. And it is that, as verified by another scientist of the team, Jon Giorgini, the trajectory did not fit. They decided to analyze other options until they verified that it did fit perfectly with the course of the rocket that in 2014 propelled the amplifier Chang’e 5-T1of the China National Space Academy.
They modified the ad, keeping the call for calm. The Chinese rocket (or whatever it was) would at most form a new crater on our satellite.
And that’s the only thing that hasn’t changed. There’s nothing to be afraid of and it doesn’t really seem too important where WE0913A comes from either. But now that it has become a mystery, what is to come is even more interesting. We know it’s not SpaceX’s Falcon 9. China swears that it’s not your thing. Do we have to keep looking? It seems. At the moment, the only thing that seems certain is that there is only a little more than a week left for the impact.