A decommissioned SpaceX rocket that got off course is expected to slam into the moon at 5,400 miles per hour on Wednesday morning.
The impact will generate an explosion equivalent to 15,000 sticks of dynamite, which is
roughly 140–150 million standard (legal consumer) firecrackers, based on approximate TNT-equivalent energy/blast comparisons—though the two are not directly equivalent because of fundamental differences in how they release energy. Still, that's a lot of boom for the buck.
The upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will probably hit the moon at 2:35 a.m. ET on Wednesday. It has been floating for 19 months in a high orbit around Earth that crosses the moon’s path. Usually, this part of the rocket goes into a long oval orbit around Earth. Then it is brought back down, burns up in the atmosphere, and falls into a far-away part of the ocean. But the pull of gravity from Earth, the moon, and the sun slowly changed the rocket’s path.
This rocket helped launch commercial landers to the moon before it was taken out of service. Julianna Scheiman is the director of NASA science and Dragon programs at SpaceX. She said the company did “a different maneuver [than de-orbiting] to ensure that the second stage itself is safe per the appropriate rules and regulations.”
“What has happened is, essentially, a mixture of solar activity and gravity forces have put it on a path towards the moon,” Scheiman added. Astronomer Bill Gray was the first to predict the date and time of the crash. He thinks the impact will release as much energy as 15,000 sticks of dynamite and will create a big cloud of debris.
Even though the crash is powerful, scientists say it will be too faint and too quick to see with the naked eye from Earth.
NASA says the crash is not a danger to Earth. The agency “will continue to track the booster for training purposes, as well as later observe the impact site for scientific purposes.” Los Alamos National Laboratory researcher Benjamin Fernando said that the collision “provides an opportunity to test pipelines for measuring flash properties to locate impact events seismically, and to better understand the multi-modal hazards posed to future lunar infrastructure and astronauts from space debris impacting the moon.”
The crater from the crash should be about 90 feet wide and 16 feet deep. NASA will aim its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at the site before and after the hit. This is a robotic spacecraft that maps the moon.This will be only the second time a used rocket has hit the moon by accident.
In 2022, a Chinese rocket booster smashed into the far side of the moon. At first, researchers thought it was a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Later they found out it was China’s Long March 3C rocket. That rocket had launched a mission around the moon in October 2014.
As NASA gets ready to keep people on the moon for a long time, it will be more important to deal with space junk in orbit around the moon. Future crashes could throw debris off the moon’s surface. That could create dangers for astronauts, spacecraft, and equipment operating nearby.
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roughly 140–150 million standard (legal consumer) firecrackers, based on approximate TNT-equivalent energy/blast comparisons—though the two are not directly equivalent because of fundamental differences in how they release energy. Still, that's a lot of boom for the buck.
The upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will probably hit the moon at 2:35 a.m. ET on Wednesday. It has been floating for 19 months in a high orbit around Earth that crosses the moon’s path. Usually, this part of the rocket goes into a long oval orbit around Earth. Then it is brought back down, burns up in the atmosphere, and falls into a far-away part of the ocean. But the pull of gravity from Earth, the moon, and the sun slowly changed the rocket’s path.
This rocket helped launch commercial landers to the moon before it was taken out of service. Julianna Scheiman is the director of NASA science and Dragon programs at SpaceX. She said the company did “a different maneuver [than de-orbiting] to ensure that the second stage itself is safe per the appropriate rules and regulations.”
“What has happened is, essentially, a mixture of solar activity and gravity forces have put it on a path towards the moon,” Scheiman added. Astronomer Bill Gray was the first to predict the date and time of the crash. He thinks the impact will release as much energy as 15,000 sticks of dynamite and will create a big cloud of debris.
Even though the crash is powerful, scientists say it will be too faint and too quick to see with the naked eye from Earth.
NASA says the crash is not a danger to Earth. The agency “will continue to track the booster for training purposes, as well as later observe the impact site for scientific purposes.” Los Alamos National Laboratory researcher Benjamin Fernando said that the collision “provides an opportunity to test pipelines for measuring flash properties to locate impact events seismically, and to better understand the multi-modal hazards posed to future lunar infrastructure and astronauts from space debris impacting the moon.”
The crater from the crash should be about 90 feet wide and 16 feet deep. NASA will aim its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at the site before and after the hit. This is a robotic spacecraft that maps the moon.This will be only the second time a used rocket has hit the moon by accident.
In 2022, a Chinese rocket booster smashed into the far side of the moon. At first, researchers thought it was a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Later they found out it was China’s Long March 3C rocket. That rocket had launched a mission around the moon in October 2014.
As NASA gets ready to keep people on the moon for a long time, it will be more important to deal with space junk in orbit around the moon. Future crashes could throw debris off the moon’s surface. That could create dangers for astronauts, spacecraft, and equipment operating nearby.
I want to thank you for following Brain Flushings. Please take time to simply check out the sponsors on this page--it's one way to support my work and you don't need to purchase anything to do so. Of course, you can Buy Me A Coffee if you want to support me directly. And finally, don't be afraid to subscribe if you enjoy the blog--it's free, and worth the cost.