The moon is about to get walloped by 3 tons of space junk, a punch that will carve out a crater that could fit several semitractor-trailers.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —
No matter whose it is, scientists expect the object to carve out a hole 33 feet to 66 feet across and send moon dust flying hundreds of miles across the barren, pockmarked surface. Gray said it was likely the third stage of a Chinese rocket that sent a test sample capsule to the moon and back in 2014. But Chinese ministry officials said the upper stage had reentered Earth’s atmosphere and burned up.
“I’ve become a little bit more cautious of such matters,” he said. “But I really just don’t see any way it could be anything else.” China has a lunar lander on the moon’s far side, but it will be too far away to detect Friday’s impact just north of the equator. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will also be out of range. It’s unlikely India’s moon-orbiting Chandrayaan-2 will be passing by then, either.
JPL’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies endorses Gray’s reassessment. A University of Arizona team also recently identified the Chinese Long March rocket segment from the light reflected off its paint, during telescope observations of the careening cylinder.Gray said SpaceX never contacted him to challenge his original claim. Neither have the Chinese.
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