Rocket moon crash LIVE – Space junk ‘HITS moon’ at 5,800mph & China denies
AN OUT-OF-CONTROL rocket part the size of a school bus has likely smashed into the Moon’s surface by now.
According to astronomers, a rocket booster was set to hit the lunar surface at around 7.25am ET (12:25 GMT) after spending nearly eight years tumbling through space.
It was likely the first time a manmade object has crashed into another space body without being aimed there, but we won’t know that it hit the Moon for sure until two satellites that orbit the Moon pass over the possible impact site and photograph any crater that resulted from the collision, the BBC reported.
The rocket part was first spotted by Bill Gray, who writes the popular Project Pluto software to track near-Earth objects.
He reported that the junk was a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage launched from Florida by Elon Musk’s team in February 2015.
However, Bill later retracted his claim and said the rocket part most likely belonged to China. China has since denied the accusation.
Read our rocket moon crash live blog for the latest news and updates…
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Where did the rocket hit?
The collision likely occurred on the far side of the Moon on Friday.
The one-tonne hunk of space junk was previously traveling at around 2.6 km per second.
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Moon crash confusion
People on social media were confused on Friday about the rocket part, and whether it had actually crashed on the moon or not.
“Anyone know if the #moon crash has happened?” one person wrote.
“Doesn’t something crash into the moon today?? 🌝🤔” another person tweeted.
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Evidence of crash will be ‘lost’
There is no way to have seen the crash happen in real-time, and we won’t know that it happened for sure until satellites orbiting the Moon send back images of a probable crash site.
The rocket booster part also likely broke into thousands of pieces, the BBC reported.
Therefore, much of the physical evidence of where it came from will be lost as well.
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Rocket’s last moments
No one will have seen the rocket part’s last moments in real-time, according to the BBC.
Two satellites that orbit the Moon will eventually provide evidence of the crash after they pass over the likely impact site.
The satellites will then photograph the crater that will probably result from the impact.
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Did the rocket hit the moon?
We might not know for weeks or months when, where, and how the rocket part actually landed on the lunar surface.
But experts predicted it would do so at around 7.25am (12.25 GMT) on Friday.
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Explained: How the Moon was created
The giant-impact theory is the widely most accepted today.
It proposes that the Moon formed during a collision between the Earth and another small planet, about the size of Mars.
The debris from this impact collected in an orbit around Earth to form the Moon.
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How many people have been on the moon?
Twelve people, all as part of the Apollo program, have stepped on the Moon.
Those who have walked on the moon are:
- Neil Armstrong
- Buzz Aldrin
- Pete Conrad
- Alan Bean
- Alan Shepard
- Edgar Mitchell
- David Scott
- James Irwin
- John Young
- Charles Duke
- Gene Cernan
- Harrison Schmidtt
As of January 2022, four of them are still…
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