Space junk set to crash into far side of Moon

[Rick]

Space junk set to crash into far side of moon and cause huge crater

In an unprecedented display of cosmic littering, a wayward rocket body will crash into the far side of the moon on Friday marking the first time that a piece of space junk has accidentally struck the lunar surface.

The spent rocket booster, believed to be part of the Chinese Chang'e 5-T1 mission which swung around the moon in 2014, is predicted to slam into the Hertzsprung crater at 12.25pm GMT, though the precise time and location are unclear.

More: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/mar/03/space-junk-about-to-crash-into-far-side-of-moon

[Rick]

Chinese rocket junk may have just smashed into Moon

The collision probably created a crater on the Moon, though it'll be tricky to confirm this since there aren't many instruments covering the natural satellite's far side. A non-peer-reviewed paper that appeared in the American Astronomical Society's research notes, however, said it may be possible to see the cloud of dust kicked up during the impact from ground-based observatories.

More: https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/04/china_moon_impact/

[Rick]

There's a cute GIF animation of the object's orbit here: https://twitter.com/tony873004/status/1499453821981904912

[Rick]

Whatever hit the Moon in March, it left this weird double crater

Astronomers predicted a mysterious object would hit the Moon on March 4 after tracking the debris for months. The object was large, and believed to be a spent rocket booster from the Chinese National Space Administration's Long March 3C vehicle that launched the Chang'e 5-T1 spacecraft in 2014.

More: https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/25/chinese_rocket_moon_crash_pic/

[Hugh]

Thanks Rick

Read about this as well.  Interesting?  Article suggested that it would appear to have had two large/heavy ends to have caused that shape, which is different to the design of the supposed spacecraft? 

Perhaps it broke up before impact but why then?

 

- Hugh

[Rick]

I expect modelling impacts of long tumbling objects could be quite challenging. There's probably a PhD in it for anyone sufficiently interested to try to work out what happened.