A large piece of rocket of unknown origin will land on the Moon on March 4

The day is approaching – March 4 – when an out-of-control large part of a rocket of unknown origin is predicted to fall on the invisible “dark” side of the moon. Although the impact will not be visible from Earth telescopes or the US lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), NASA’s spacecraft will probably be able to see with its cameras the “meteorites”, ie the crater that will be created. . But this search can take weeks or even months.

The origin of the big space “garbage” is foggy. It was initially thought to be part of the Falcon 9 rocket of US Space X, which launched an environmental satellite in February 2015. Subsequent observations, according to Space.com, weakened this scenario and made it more likely that Missile remnant comes from the Chinese Chang’e 5-T1 rocket launched in 2014.

But on February 21, China categorically denied this, saying that the upper part of the missile was completely burned in the atmosphere. This refutation seems to be confirmed by the latest data from the US Space Force, according to which the specific rocket particle probably entered the Earth’s atmosphere in October 2015, about a year after its launch, according to SpaceNews. But other researchers have questioned this, with the result that there is still uncertainty about the origin of the unmanned rocket.

The LRO, which has been orbiting the Moon since 2009 by mapping it and searching for areas of water, has in the past located various objects on the lunar surface, such as the various landing points of the American Apollo missions of the period 1969-1972 or the point of impact of a rocket part of the Apollo 16 mission in April 1972. Maybe this time he sees at least the point where the remnant of the rocket will fall.

Follow Skai.gr on Google News
and be the first to know all the news