A remnant of a Falcon 9 rocket launched by SpaceX into space in 2015 is expected to crash on the moon in the coming weeks, presumably around the fourth of March.
It was a rocket launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida in February 2015 and carried the telescope and weather satellite of the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The satellite was launched by the missile at a L1 grunge point between the Sun and Earth, about a million and a half kilometers from Earth.
After launch, the second part of the missile did not have the energy to escape from the Earth's gravitational system and the moon has in recent years continued to sail in space between the planet and the moon.
Now experts tracking objects close to Earth estimate that the remaining section of the four-ton rocket is likely to collide with the moon in the coming weeks.
Bill Gray, who created software that tracks objects close to Earth, recently estimated that the part is likely to hit the far side of the moon near its equator on March 4, 2022.
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, of the Harvard Center and Smithsonian for Astrophysics, also agrees with these calculations, noting in a Twitter tweet that "there is in space part of the second phase of an old Falcon rocket that has remained in orbit since 2015. This part is about to hit the moon on March 4. It's interesting. "But it's not such a big deal."
In any case, the remnant of the rocket will hit the moon at a speed of 5700 miles per hour or about 9173 km / h.
This is probably the first time a remnant of a rocket launched from Earth has hit the moon.
The area in question will hit the part of the rocket, there is also a satellite of the US space agency NASA called LRO and a satellite of the Indian space agency.
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