- By Ashita Singh
- Sun, 30 Jan 2022 12:44 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
New Delhi | Jagran New Desk: A big chunk of Space X Falcon 9 spacecraft that was left in outer space due to insufficient fuel, on March 4 will crash on Moon as per scientists. The rocket had blasted off seven years ago and was abandoned in space after completing its mission.
The abandoned rocket will crash into the far side of the Moon (not visible from the Earth) in a fiery explosion at about 8,000 km per hour speed. It was US astronomer Bill Gray who calculated the space junk's new collision course with the Moon.
According to ABC News, Gray developed software that keeps tabs on objects whizzing around inside our Solar System, along with a troupe of observers around the world.
the SpaceX junk will crash at 11.25 a.m. AEDT (4.55 p.m. India time) on March 4. The impact will be minor, according to the scientists.
The rocket was deployed in 2015 to put into orbit a NASA satellite called the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR).
Here's How the out-of-control rocket will deliver a crater on Moon?
As per the Scientist' predictions, the SpaceX rocket stage is set to crash into a 520km-wide crater called Hertzsprung on the lunar surface.
The Moon has no atmosphere, so the stage won't burn up on its way down.
"Instead, it will smash straight into the rock and scatter bits over the lunar surface," Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at Harvard University, told Radio National.
"There's going to be a huge spray of moon dust going many miles into the sky above the Moon," McDowell was quoted as saying.
It's likely that other objects abandoned in deep space have smashed into the Moon too.
Meanwhile according to Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, "There're at least 50 objects that were left in deep Earth orbit in the '60s, '70s, and '80s that were just abandoned there. We didn't track them."
"Probably at least a few of them hit the moon accidentally and we just didn't notice," he said.