An old SpaceX rocket is about to hit the moon

The second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that launched in February 2015 will hit the lunar surface on March 4, according to calculations by famous astronomers such as Bill Gray s Jonathan McDowell.

El objeto de cuatro toneladas, denominado 2015-007B, quedó dando vueltas en una órbita inestable alrededor de la Luna después de lanzar con éxito el observatorio DSCOVR de NOAA, que opera desde el punto L1 de Lagás de kiló de las millros the earth.

DSCOVR was SpaceX’s first “interplanetary” mission. For a successful satellite insertion, the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket had to reach an ever-higher level, with running out of fuel to return to Earth’s atmosphere and losing energy to escape the Earth-Moon system.

As a result, the rocket’s debris was following an irregular path that astronomers say will produce an impact on the moon, likely on March 4 at 12:25 UTC. Astronomers cannot be certain because many variables, such as the pressure of sunlight on the rover, can cause changes in its orbit.

This will be the first time that an artificial object collides with sThe surface of the moon inadvertently. It was Soft landing on the moon s Hard landing on the moon In the history of space exploration, but the upper stages of the rocket usually disintegrate in the Earth’s atmosphere or are launched into orbit around the Sun and keep it away from the Earth and the Moon.

In lunar orbit, all three things can happen: the body returns to Earth, collides with the moon, or sees its path turbulent for some reason and begins to revolve around the sun. It is an unstable orbit.

2015-007B will affect on the hidden face The moon has a speed of 2.58 km / h. We hope that NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and India’s Chandrayaan-2 can capture Crater images from the Moon’s orbit. Maybe they will get it Scientific data to complete the 2009 LCROSS mission, When NASA Deliberately dropping a rocket into the moon To study the debris from the explosion.