Space Junk Just Crashed Into the Far Side of the Moon at 5,800 MPH
Artist’s animation of a rocket booster crashing into the moon.
Observers have been tracking a chunk of space junk, waiting for it to strike the Moon. It should’ve hit the far side of the Moon, and hopefully, orbiters will have images of the impact site, though that might take a while.
The origins of the junk are in dispute. Some say it’s a spent booster from a Chinese rocket. Others say it’s from a Project Pluto software that tracks Near-Earth Objects (NEOs.) Initially, Gray said the object was the second stage from 
Bill Gray from Project Pluto calculated that the space junk would hit at or near the green x in this image. Hertzsprung crater is an enormous impact crater on the lunar far side, and it’s about 570 km (350 miles) in diameter. Credit: Bill Gray/Project Pluto
The hunk of junk has been traveling through space for seven years and impacted the Moon at about 9300 kph (5800 mph.) It should’ve struck the Moon on March 4th, and it should’ve left a crater about 20 meters (65 feet) in diameter. No observers, human or technological, were in a position to watch the impact.
But NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) will try to find it. That…
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