A discarded SpaceX rocket is believed to have crashed into the moon at 8700 kilometres per hour earlier this morning. Astronomers around the world have trained their telescopes on the predicted site of the impact in the hope of capturing images and eking some useful science out of the accidental impact.
The craft is the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket which launched in January last year carrying the Hakuto-R spacecraft from commercial company ispace 鈥� a craft which ironically also crashed into the moon during an unsuccessful landing attempt.
It is thought that the almost 14 metre long, 4000 kilogram Falcon craft impacted the moon at 5.35am today London time. The crash was predicted to occur close to Einstein Crater, which would place it towards the edge of the visible moon from Earth.
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at the University of Leicester says that telescopes around the world were trained on the site of the impact and that images of the area before and after impact will emerge soon. Lunar orbiters from South Korea and the US will also observe the impact site.
Nasa predicts that the impact will create a crater 18 metres wide and 4 metres deep.
鈥淚t is not a good thing to be randomly sending debris into the moon,鈥� says Sargeant. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not something we should be making a habit of. What if it hit a site of special interest? What if it caused damage to the historical Apollo landers?鈥�
Both NASA and ESA are required to take the end of a spacecraft鈥檚 life into account before a mission launches, ensuring that there is a plan and enough fuel to safely de-orbit it. Commercial companies are not covered by the same rules, says Sargeant, although efforts to introduce such requirements are underway.
When SpaceX launched the Falcon in question the heavy payload required more thrust than usual, meaning that the rocket ended up floating uncontrollably in space. It eventually fell into an orbit, unintentionally, that put it on a collision course with the moon.
But Sargeant says that some science can be salvaged from the event, with astronomers likely to capture rare images of a moon crater being created, and the lunar regolith plumes ejected from the impact.
at the Macau University of Science and Technology, China, says that all planetary surfaces should ideally be kept as pristine as feasible 鈥� without hindering exploration 鈥� but that our moon has already been impacted by decades of US, Soviet and Russian, Chinese, Indian, Israeli, and other missions. As well as millions of years of asteroid impacts.
鈥淩ockets have been landing, crashing, and taking off from the surface for decades now,鈥� says Bugiolacchi, who says that a controlled crash may even be welcomed by planetary scientists. 鈥淜nowing the projectile鈥檚 mass, impact velocity, angle, and trajectory provide invaluable data on surface evolution. The primary agent shaping most planetary surfaces is high-velocity impacts. Normally, these events are entirely random in terms of physical properties and dynamics.鈥�
