{"id":12115,"date":"2022-03-06T18:43:11","date_gmt":"2022-03-06T18:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/all-news\/abandoned-rocket-hits-the-moon-scientists"},"modified":"2022-03-06T19:15:58","modified_gmt":"2022-03-06T19:15:58","slug":"abandoned-rocket-hits-the-moon-scientists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/all-news\/abandoned-rocket-hits-the-moon-scientists","title":{"rendered":"Abandoned rocket \u2018hits the Moon\u2019 \u2013 scientists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – South-Sudan. <\/strong><\/span>A discarded part of a rocket should have crashed into the Moon\u2019s far side by now, say scientists who were expecting the impact at 12:25 GMT. The three-tonne rocket part had been tracked for a number of years, but its origin was contested.<\/p>\n

At first, astronomers thought it might have belonged to Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX firm, and then said it was Chinese \u2013 something China denies. The effects of the impact on the Moon should have been minor.<\/p>\n

The rocket stage would have dug out a small crater and created a plume of dust. Scientists hope to get confirmation in the coming days, or weeks. The rocket part was first sighted from Earth in March 2015. A Nasa-funded space survey in Arizona spotted it, but quickly lost interest when the object was shown not to be an asteroid.<\/p>\n

The rocket part is what\u2019s known as \u201cspace junk\u201d \u2013 hardware discarded from missions or satellites without enough fuel or energy to return to Earth. Some pieces are closer to us, just above the Earth, but others, like this booster, are thousands of kilometres away in high orbit, far from the Earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n

The European Space Agency estimates there are now 36,500 pieces of space junk larger than 10cm. No space programme or university formally tracks deep space junk. Monitoring space is expensive and the risks to humans from high-orbit debris are low.<\/p>\n

So, it falls to a tiny handful of volunteer astronomers who spend their free time making calculations and estimating orbits. They fire emails and alerts back and forth, asking whoever is in the best location on the planet to spot an object in space.<\/p>\n

Junk on crash course with Moon \u2018not from Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX\u2019 Quest to retreive 50-year-old UK space debris \u2018We must clean up junk or risk satellites\u2019 Six weeks after the booster was first seen, Peter Birtwhistle, 63, was watching the skies for asteroids from his garden in Newbury, in the south of England.<\/p>\n

His telescope picked up a tiny dot of light tracking across the sky. Calculations suggested it was part of a rocket, he told BBC News. Space junk drops in and out of view, often unpredictably. For seven years, he barely saw the rocket part \u2013 until in January, it reappeared.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grabbed some images when it passed close to Earth,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

He sent his pictures to astronomer and data scientist Bill Gray, on the east coast of the United States. He is the expert who went on to identify it as a SpaceX booster heading for the Moon. News that a discarded part of one of billionaire Mr Musk\u2019s space missions was going to strike the Moon made global headlines.<\/p>\n

But tracking space junk is often \u201cdetective work,\u201d Mr Gray explains. The rocket insignia cannot be seen \u2013 astronomers have to piece together its identity by tracking its route backwards through space. They then match its orbit to dates and locations of rocket launches and trajectories.<\/p>\n

But some space missions, including China\u2019s, don\u2019t publicise their routes. \u201cFor a Chinese mission, we know the launch date because they are televised. So I take a guess that it\u2019s going to get to the Moon \u2013 usually in four or five days. Then I compute an approximate orbit,\u201d Mr Gray explains.<\/p>\n

And sometimes he makes mistakes. Weeks after the SpaceX identification, another observer sent Mr Gray new data, revealing that his identification was impossible.<\/p>\n

He ran the numbers again and concluded it was the third stage of a rocket from China\u2019s lunar mission Chang\u2019e 5-T1, launched in October 2014. China denied this, saying the upper-stage had re-entered the Earth\u2019s atmosphere and burned up.<\/p>\n

Mr Gray is sticking to his prediction. He believes China has mixed up the tracking of two rocket parts. \u201cI\u2019m 99.9% sure it\u2019s the China 5-T1,\u201d he says. In reality, we will never be sure.<\/p>\n

Prof Hugh Lewis, from University of Southampton, says the scientific value of tracking deep space junk is limited. But he says it\u2019s important to \u201ckeep an eye on what\u2019s there\u201d, especially as human settlement in space becomes more likely.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the mess we\u2019ve created. Objects that we think are safe can actually return to Earth unexpectedly,\u201d he says. Wherever it came from, no-one will have witnessed the booster\u2019s last moments.<\/p>\n

Evidence of what happened won\u2019t come until two satellites that orbit the Moon pass over the projected impact site and photograph the resulting crater feature.<\/p>\n

And as the booster broke into thousands of pieces, much of the physical evidence of its true origins will be lost, too. The best we\u2019ve got are the estimates made by Mr Gray and the volunteer astronomers watching the skies.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About South-Sudan<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – South-Sudan. A discarded part of a rocket should have crashed into the Moon\u2019s far side by now, say scientists who were expecting the impact at 12:25 GMT. The three-tonne rocket part had been tracked for a number of years, but its origin was contested. At first, astronomers thought it might have belonged to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":12114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[234,265,233],"class_list":["post-12115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-miscellaneous","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-south-sudan","tag-south-sudan"],"yoast_head":"\nAbandoned rocket \u2018hits the Moon\u2019 \u2013 scientists - South Sudan<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A discarded part of a rocket should have crashed into the Moon\u2019s far side by now, say scientists who were expecting the ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/all-news\/abandoned-rocket-hits-the-moon-scientists\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Abandoned rocket \u2018hits the Moon\u2019 \u2013 scientists\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A discarded part of a rocket should have crashed into the Moon\u2019s far side by now, say scientists who were expecting the ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/all-news\/abandoned-rocket-hits-the-moon-scientists\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Sudan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-03-06T18:43:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-06T19:15:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/sites\/32\/2022\/03\/img-62250858295b1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"976\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"549\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/all-news\/abandoned-rocket-hits-the-moon-scientists#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/all-news\/abandoned-rocket-hits-the-moon-scientists\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Abandoned rocket \u2018hits the Moon\u2019 \u2013 scientists\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-03-06T18:43:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-03-06T19:15:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/all-news\/abandoned-rocket-hits-the-moon-scientists\"},\"wordCount\":807,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/all-news\/abandoned-rocket-hits-the-moon-scientists#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/sites\/32\/2022\/03\/img-62250858295b1.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-South-Sudan\",\"South-Sudan\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"miscellaneous\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/all-news\/abandoned-rocket-hits-the-moon-scientists#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/all-news\/abandoned-rocket-hits-the-moon-scientists\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/all-news\/abandoned-rocket-hits-the-moon-scientists\",\"name\":\"Abandoned rocket \u2018hits the Moon\u2019 \u2013 scientists - 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