Space junk set to crash into moon likely from China, not SpaceX, experts say
ByMichelle Ewing, Cox Media Group National Content Desk
ByMichelle Ewing, Cox Media Group National Content Desk
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A massive, 3-ton hunk of “space junk” is set to crash into the moon Friday – but the debris may not be from a SpaceX rocket after all.
According to The Associated Press, although asteroid tracker Bill Gray initially identified the object as the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon rocket launched in 2015, he later revised his assessment, saying it likely came from a Chinese rocket launched in 2014. Chinese ministry officials denied his claim, arguing that the rocket’s upper stage burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere, the AP reported.
U.S. Space Command said the Chinese rocket never deorbited, but officials could not confirm that the debris hurtling toward the moon came from China, according to the AP.
Either way, the object is predicted to slam into the moon’s far side at 5,800 mph on Friday, leaving a 33- to 66-foot-wide crater, the news agency reported.
“It’s not a SpaceX problem, nor is it a China problem,” Gray, a physicist and mathematician, told the AP. “Nobody is particularly careful about what they do with junk at this sort of orbit.”
Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, who works for the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, supports Gray’s revised prediction, along with the NASAJet Propulsion Laboratory’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, which had questioned Gray’s previous assessment.
Because the collision will be out of range of a Chinese lunar lander on the moon’s far side, as well as NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and India’s Chandrayaan-2, it could take weeks or months to confirm, the AP reported.
Photos: Snow Moon 2022 brightens the night sky The February full moon, also known as the "Snow Moon," rises behind people standing on The Edge, the outdoor observation deck in Manhattan, New York City, on February 15, 2022. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Photos: Snow Moon 2022 brightens the night sky The Snow Moon rises behind the Empire State Building as the sun sets in New York City on February 15, 2022, as seen from Hoboken, New Jersey. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)
Photos: Snow Moon 2022 brightens the night sky The full moon rises behind the eagle and wreath of honor of the Quadriga, which stands on the Brandenburg Gate, in Berlin on Feb. 15, 2022. (Wolfgang Kumm/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Photos: Snow Moon 2022 brightens the night sky A commercial airline aircraft flies before the rising waxing gibbous moon above Kuwait City on February 15, 2022. (YASSER AL-ZAYYAT/AFP via Getty Images)
Photos: Snow Moon 2022 brightens the night sky The full moon rises above the ferry on the Bosphorus in Istanbul on February 16, 2022. (Mehmet Murat Onel/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Photos: Snow Moon 2022 brightens the night sky A view of the full moon in Moscow on February 15, 2022. (Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Photos: Snow Moon 2022 brightens the night sky ISTANBUL, TURKIYE - FEBRUARY 15: The full moon appears over Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque (second right) and Suleymaniye Mosque (right) in Istanbul on February 15, 2022. (Isa Terli/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Photos: Snow Moon 2022 brightens the night sky A Ryanair plane passes by an almost full moon after taking off from the Adolfo Suarez Madrid Barajas airport in Madrid on Feb. 15, 2022. (Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Photos: Snow Moon 2022 brightens the night sky The moon rises over the lights at Genbting Snow Park before the men's aerials qualification at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2022, in Zhangjiakou, China. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)
Photos: Snow Moon 2022 brightens the night sky The moon rises over a flag of the United States at the sliding center during the 2022 Winter Olympics, Monday, Feb. 14, 2022, in the Yanqing district of Beijing. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)