A piece of human-made debris crashed into the moon earlier this year in a rare example. The site of the crash has been imaged by NASA and shows a crater.
The booster from the Long March 3C rocket was the one that caused the impactor. Evidence of the composition of the object suggested it was part of a Chinese rocket, despite the Chinese officials denying it.
The impact location of the booster can be seen in the enlarged image taken by the LRC.
The impact created two craters that were 18 and 16 meters in diameter. This configuration hasn't been seen in previous rocket impacts on the moon, such as those craters created when rocket upper stages were deliberately impacted into the moon.
The rocket body had large mass at each end according to NASA. The rest of the rocket stage consists of an empty fuel tank. The double nature of the crater could indicate the identity of the rocket body.
The impact did not cause a lot of damage to the moon, but it did point to a bigger problem of space debris.
Sending up new satellites is more difficult because old satellites that are no longer working are left to float around in the Earth's atmosphere.
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