On March 4, 2022, a lonely, spent rocket booster will smack into the surface of the Moon at over 6,000 mph. Once the dust has settled, NASA will move into position to get an up- close view of the smoldering crater and hopefully shed some light on the mysterious physics of planetary impacts.
As a planetary scientist who studies the Moon, I view this impact as an exciting opportunity.
Over the last 4 billion years, the Moon has been a constant witness to the solar system's history. Scientists rarely see the projectiles that form the craters.
Scientists can only learn so much from studying a crater if they know what happened.
The upcoming rocket impact will provide an experiment that could reveal a lot about how natural collides affect planetary surfaces.
A deeper understanding of impact physics will help researchers understand the barren landscape of the Moon and the effects impacts have on Earth and other planets.
There is debate over the identity of the tumbling object currently on a collision course with the Moon.
Astronomers know that the object is an upper stage booster. It is roughly 40 feet (12 meters) long and weighs over 10,000 pounds.
Both parties have denied ownership of the rocket, but there is evidence that it was launched in 2015.
The rocket is expected to crash into the vast barren plain within the giant Hertzsprung crater, just over the horizon on the far side of the moon from Earth.
A shock wave will travel up the length of the projectile at several miles per second after the rocket touches the lunar surface. The back end of the rocket hull will be destroyed in a matter of seconds.
The top layer of the Moon is called the regolith. If there was a craft in the area at the time, a white-hot flash would be visible from space.
As dust and sand are thrown skyward, a cloud of rock and metal will expand from the impact point. The ejected material will rain down on the surface around the crater. There will be nothing left of the rocket.
If you're a fan of space, you might have experienced a similar experiment in 2009, when NASA crashed the LCROSS into the moon.
The LCROSS mission was a smashing success, and I was a part of it. Scientists were able to find signs of water ice that had been liberated from the Moon's surface by studying the composition of the dust plume lofted into the sunlight.
This piece of evidence supports the idea that comets have been delivering water and organic compounds to the Moon for billions of years.
My colleagues and I have been trying to determine the depth of the buried ice-rich layer for a decade because the crater is permanently obscured by shadows.
planetary scientists will be able to observe a very similar crater in the light of day thanks to the accidental experiment of the upcoming crash. For the first time, it will be possible to see the LCROSS crater in full detail.
The impact on the far side of the Moon will not be seen by Earth-based telescopes. After the impact, NASA will begin to get a glimpse of the crater as it takes it above the impact zone.
The camera on the moon will take photos of the impact site with a resolution of about 1 meter. The cameras from other space agencies may be trained on the crater.
The shape of the crater and ejected dust and rocks will show how the rocket was oriented at the time of impact. A more circular feature will be produced by a vertical orientation.
The crater could be anywhere from 30 to 100 feet (10 to 30 meters) in diameter and up to 10 feet (2 to 3 meters) deep.
Valuable information will be generated from the amount of heat generated. If observations can be made quickly enough, there is a chance the lunar orbiter will be able to detect glowing-hot material inside the crater.
The total amount of heat from the impact could be calculated using this. High-resolution images could be used to estimate the amount of melted material in the crater and debris field.
Scientists will look for any other subtle changes to the surface by comparing before and after images from the camera and heat sensor. The effects can extend for hundreds of times the crater's diameter.
Impacts and crater formation are common in the solar system. The loose, granular top layer is common on most airless worlds.
Despite how common it is, the overall physics of this process are poorly understood.
The data from the LCROSS experiment could be used to make better impact simulations.
Knowledge of lunar surface properties, especially the quantity and depth of buried ice, is in high demand, with a lot of missions planned to visit the Moon in the coming years.
This rare impact event will provide new insights that may prove critical to the success of future missions to the Moon and beyond.
Paul Hayne is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder.
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