A Dead Rocket Just Crashed Into the Moon, and Scientists Are Thrilled

A big hunk of space junk met an explosive end on Friday when it collided with the moon, and astronomers are excited to view the fallout.

An old rocket booster once thought to be the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9, but now believed to be from the Chinese Chang’e 5-T1 mission (although China denies this), slammed into the moon’s far side at over 5,000 miles per hour around 4:25 a.m. PT. 

The impact took place on the far side of the moon out of view of any telescopes or spacecraft, but NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will be in a position to start taking photos of the impact site in mid-March. 

Modeling software company AGI developed this animation of how the crash may have appeared from a point above the moon. 

Bill Gray, an amateur astronomer and software developer in Maine, first noticed the terminal trajectory. His software picked up the impact in an orbital model and Gray worked with observatories around the world to gather additional data and increase his confidence in the prediction. 

Gray believes he misidentified the booster as a Falcon 9 years ago. He and other researchers since confirmed it to be the Chinese rocket part instead. 

“I am astounded that we can tell the difference between the two rocket body options — SpaceX versus Chinese — and confirm which one will impact the moon with the data we have,” Adam Battle, a planetary science graduate student at the University of Arizona said in a statement in February. “The differences we see are primarily due to type of paint used by SpaceX and the Chinese.”

The rocket crashed into the lunar surface in a crater named Hertzsprung that’s a little larger than the state of Iowa. The location is remote enough that the impact doesn’t pose any threat to the Apollo mission or other space program landing sites.

“(The) rocket impact will provide a fortuitous experiment that could reveal a lot about how natural…