The crash site of a forgotten rocket stage that hit the far side of the moon in March has been found by scientists.
They don't know whether the debris came from a rocket or not. They don't understand why the impact excavated two craters.
Mark Robinson, a professor of geological sciences at Arizona State University, is the principal investigator for the camera aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been photographing the moon. If the prediction of the crater, its depth and diameter, had been correct, that would have made it even more fun.
Bill Gray, the developer of Project Pluto, tracked what looked like a discarded upper stage of a rocket when he was in January. It was on the far side of the moon.
It was certain that the crash was going to happen. There is a time difference between the eastern and western time on March 4. There was some uncertainty about the time and place of the impact due to the fact that the object's exact location was not known.
Mr. Gray said that the second stage of the Falcon 9 was used to launch the Deep Space Climate Observatory.
He wasn't right.
A NASA engineer told Mr. Gray that the launch trajectory of DSCOVR was not compatible with the object he was following. The most likely candidate was a Long March 3C rocket that was launched from China a few months earlier.
The students at the University of Arizona reported that the light reflected from the object was similar to Chinese rockets.
A Chinese official denied that it was part of a Chinese rocket, saying that the rocket stage from that mission had burned up.
The object continued to follow the path dictated by gravity regardless of what rocket it was. It slammed into the far side of the moon at a time when no one was looking.
The hope was that a freshly carved crater would show up in a photograph taken by the spacecraft later.
Mr. Gray used his software to make a prediction. The location of the crash was calculated by experts at NASA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The researchers had to compare the lunar landscape before and after the crash to see if there were any changes.
He worried that it would take a year to fill the box.
The majority of the moon has been photographed over the past 13 years, but there are some spots it has missed. Some of the gaps were close to the crash site.
Dr. Robinson joked that he knew where Murphy's Law would hit.
The mission team was able to fill most of the gaps because of the crash.
After that, the search began.
If the before-and-after pictures are taken at the same time of day, a computer program will compare them. Many of the images were taken at different times, making the search difficult.
Dr. Robinson said that with all the false positives, they just sat down and had a bunch of people manually go through the millions of dots.
Alexander Sonke is a senior in Arizona State. He thought he had spent about 50 hours on the task.
The graduate was Mr. Sonke. He tied the knot. He went on a vacation. He resumed the search for the impact site a week and a half after his first day back at work.
He was able to find it.
As the before and after images blinked back and forth, Mr. Sonke said he had seen a group of pixels that looked different in brightness.
Mr. Sonke was pretty sure that it was a new geological feature. I jumped out of my seat and tried to keep my excitement in check.
Dr. Robinson said that the western crater formed a few thousandths of a second before the east one.
This isn't the first time a piece of the moon has been hit. The craters on the moon were created by pieces of the Saturn 5 rockets. The impacts didn't create a double crater.
This one may have pointed to its mystery identity. In October of last year, a Chinese mission carried the Chang'e-5 T1 spacecraft, which will be used in the next mission, Chang'e-5, which will land on the moon.
T1 did not include a lander, but Dr. Robinson thinks it had a heavy mass at the top of the stage to make it look like one. The two craters could have been created by the rocket engines at the bottom and the landers at the top.
Dr. Robinson said that it was sheer speculation.
The other parts of the rocket stage are not likely to cause much damage to the lunar surface.
There was an impact site between Mr. Gray's sites and the NASA one. He said that it was within the margins of error.
It was fortunate that the gores in the images were filled in by the team of lunar explorers. One of the gores was impacted by that thing. We wouldn't have had abefore image if I hadn't been alert.
It is possible that the scientists found the crash site. The dirt thrown out from a crater is usually brighter over time. Scientists were able to identify the craters because of that.
They would still be looking for a bright spot in the haystack.
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