SpaceX Rocket Will Hit The Moon In Weeks

Elon Musk’s space transport services company SpaceX is heading towards the Moon but this is happening by accident.

Launched seven years ago, a four-ton booster segment of a SpaceX rocket will smash into the Moon on March 4, according to The New York Times citing recently-conducted observations and calculations by astronomers.

The collision is expected to take place at 7:25 a.m. ET. There is some uncertainty about time but that does not mean the segment of the rocket that launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida back in February 2015 will not hit the Moon. “For those asking: yes, an old Falcon 9 second stage left in high orbit in 2015 is going to hit the moon on March 4,” Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, tweeted. “It’s interesting, but not a big deal.”

For those asking: yes, an old Falcon 9 second stage left in high orbit in 2015 is going to hit the moon on March 4. It's interesting, but not a big deal.

— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) January 25, 2022

Scientists have made sharp statements regarding the Moon’s unexpected visitor. “It is quite certain it’s going to hit, and it will hit within a few minutes of when it was predicted and probably within a few kilometers,” Bill Gray, a developer of Project Pluto, said. In this regard, The New York Times shared a collision course that you can see just below.

Credit: Bill Gray of Project Pluto

The collision due to SpaceX’s booster might tell something new about the Moon

It is not known exactly at which point on the Moon the booster will hit. The imminent smash, on the other hand, is expected to open the door to understanding the formation process of other craters on the surface of Earth’s only natural satellite that formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago. NASA explains here how the Moon was formed.

“The advantage you have of smashing a rocket into the Moon and creating an artificial crater, instead of letting nature throw a rock at the moon and making an actual one, is that you know exactly what you’re throwing at the moon, you know what it’s made of and how heavy it is,” McDowell explained. “If you know a four-ton aluminum rocket stage makes this big a crater, then that gives you a sense of how big a rock must have made this other crater.”

Following the collision, new material may emerge from under the lunar surface, broadening our horizon relating to the composition of the Moon.

Meanwhile, Eric Berger, a meteorologist of Ars Technica tells what is exactly happening to the segment in question:

The Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage was high enough that it did not have enough fuel to return to Earth’s atmosphere. It also lacked the energy to escape the gravity of the Earth-Moon system, so it has been following a somewhat chaotic orbit since February 2015.