Observers are watching a piece of space junk that is about to hit the Moon. It should have hit the far side of the Moon, and hopefully, there will be images of the impact site.
There is a dispute over the origins of the junk. Some say it is a spent booster from a Chinese rocket. Others think it's from a rocket. Nobody has claimed it so far.
Bill Gray was the first person to see the object. The Project Pluto software tracks Near-Earth objects. Gray said the object was the second stage of the DISCOVR spaceship. That was the upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket. After talking with JPL, he changed his mind. Gray says it's a Chang 5-T1 rocket booster. It isn't surprising that China denies it.
Gray said on his website that he would be 100% certain if it was a rock. I am 100% certain that it will hit the above point. Space junk can be difficult.
The piece of junk has been travelling through space for seven years and has impacted the Moon. It should have hit the Moon on March 4th and left a crater about 65 feet in diameter. No one was in a position to observe the impact.
The LRO will try to find it. It could take weeks or even months.
An agency spokesman told The Wall Street Journal that NASA will use its cameras to attempt to identify the impact site and determine any potential changes to the lunar environment.
The LRO has a camera system called the LROC. LROC takes high-resolution images of the moon. The equipment left behind by the Apollo missions should allow it to find the impact site and what is left of the space junk. Moon junk?
There is some science involved in the tale of a piece of space debris that has not been accounted for.
Scientists don't know a lot about impact craters. Impact craters are everywhere and have been imaged and studied in depth. There is a chance to see a crater. We know the mass of the impactor and its speed. Scientists can tell the object's orientation at the time of impact. Data about the impact site will be revealed by the impact.
The University of Colorado, Boulder has an assistant professor named Paul Hayne. He is the author and co-author of many papers on the Moon and other planetary science topics. He wrote an article about the impact of a rocket on the moon.
Without knowing the specifics of what created a crater, there is only so much scientists can learn.
When a human-made object strikes a Solar System body, it's usually by design. This impact is an experiment. What can researchers learn?
The surfaces of planets like Mercury and Earth have been battered by impacts for billions of years. A deeper understanding of impact physics will help researchers interpret the barren landscape of the Moon.
![This is an image of the Hertzsprung crater from Lunar Orbiter 5. Image Credit: By James Stuby based on NASA image. - Reprocessed Lunar Orbiter 5 image rotated and cropped in GIMP. The original image is in the public domain because it is a work of the U.S. Government (NASA). Immediate source: Lunar and Planetary Institute, Lunar Orbiter Photo GalleryLunar Orbiter 5, image 024, h1 [1], CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53831564](https://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/968px-Hertzsprung_crater_5024_h1.jpg)
We know the size and mass of the rocket stage, but we don't know who it is. It is about 40 feet long and weighs about 10,000 lbs. When the object strikes the Moon, a shockwave will travel the object's length, and the back end will be destroyed, sending metal debris in all directions. We know this because of the LCROSS mission.
The LRO was launched at the same time as the LCROSS. The mission was to determine the nature of the hydrogen that India's Chandrayaan-1 probed at the Moon. LCROSS did something important when it detected water. It collected and relayed data from the spent Centaur upper stage as it crashed into the Moon.
The impact experiments were performed at the NASA Ames Vertical Gun Range. They were able to see how much volatiles can be released by an impact. The combined effort sheds light on how impacts could deliver liquid water and other materials.
Scientists were able to find signs of water ice liberated from the Moon's surface by studying the composition of the dust plume lofted into the sunlight. This was a crucial piece of evidence to support the idea that comets have been delivering water and organic compounds to the Moon for billions of years.
The Moon's surface has been shaped by impacts over billions of years, creating a layer of loose, pulverized rock that covers most airless worlds. The overall physics of this process is poorly understood despite how common it is.
The LCROSS crater is hidden and has resisted further study.
 from the lunar south pole. At that location, the impact crater is in almost perpetual shadow. Image Credit: By Lunar_south_pole.jpg: USGSderivative work: J6naspeg (talk) - Lunar_south_pole.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9646922)
This time, it is different. This impact is an opportunity to learn more about the Moon, impacts, and the transportation of water and other materials around the Solar System. We have to wait for the LRO to get in a position where its cameras can work.
Scientists will be able to see the impact site before and after images, and they will be able to see changes in the surface which can extend for hundreds of meters.
When we look to the future, this impact and its lessons are important. Multiple agencies and private companies are planning missions to the moon. The better prepared these missions will be the more we learn.
Bill Gray, the man who first spotted the rocket debris, believes that it is a Chinese booster. There are some quirks in the path of the object. He says on his website that he expected the perigee to be near the earth's surface. The perigee seemed high, he said, because fuel that remained in the booster after separation. When you try to figure out where the junk came from, you get a wrong answer.
Haynes doesn't seem as concerned with the object's origins as Gray is, and he sees it as welcome, science.
We don't know who sent the object into space. That doesn't matter. The party responsible might not want to admit it, but they are the funders of a science experiment that might have cost millions to perform on purpose.
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