A Piece of a SpaceX Rocket Is On Track To Collide With the Far Side of the Moon (cbsnews.com) 35
Astronomers said this week that a piece of a Falcon 9 rocket that was launched in February 2015 is currently on a trajectory to collide with the moon in just a few weeks. CBS News reports: The rocket left from Florida's Cape Canaveral and launched NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory, a project that allows researchers to maintain real-time data for more accurate space weather alerts and forecasts. According to NOAA, having that data is "critical," as space weather events "have the potential to disrupt nearly every major public infrastructure system on Earth." During that deployment, Falcon 9's second stage, which provides it with a second boost to reach its desired orbit, ran out of fuel to return to Earth, according to meteorologist and Ars Technica space editor Eric Berger. The second stage has been orbiting Earth ever since, and now, according to data gathered by astronomers, it's on track to hit the moon.
Bill Gray, who writes the Project Pluto software that is used by both amateur and professional astronomers, gathered data from those space observers over the past few weeks to predict just when the impact will occur. Based on the information he gathered, there will be a "certain impact" with the far side of the moon on March 4, he said. The rocket stage is currently floating away from Earth and outside of the moon's orbit on a "chaotic" orbit, Gray said, but in the coming days, it's expected to turn around and head back towards Earth. It made a "close lunar flyby" on January 5, but March 4 is when its path and the moon's will cross. Thankfully, there's no cause for concern, says Gray, noting that it's the "first unintentional case" of space junk hitting the moon that he's aware of. It may actually help researchers learn more about the moon's makeup if lunar orbiters are able to observe the crash site.
"If we can tell the [lunar orbiter] folks exactly where the crater is, they'll eventually pass over that spot and be able to see a very fresh impact crater and probably learn something about the geology (well, selenology) of that part of the moon," Gray said.
Bill Gray, who writes the Project Pluto software that is used by both amateur and professional astronomers, gathered data from those space observers over the past few weeks to predict just when the impact will occur. Based on the information he gathered, there will be a "certain impact" with the far side of the moon on March 4, he said. The rocket stage is currently floating away from Earth and outside of the moon's orbit on a "chaotic" orbit, Gray said, but in the coming days, it's expected to turn around and head back towards Earth. It made a "close lunar flyby" on January 5, but March 4 is when its path and the moon's will cross. Thankfully, there's no cause for concern, says Gray, noting that it's the "first unintentional case" of space junk hitting the moon that he's aware of. It may actually help researchers learn more about the moon's makeup if lunar orbiters are able to observe the crash site.
"If we can tell the [lunar orbiter] folks exactly where the crater is, they'll eventually pass over that spot and be able to see a very fresh impact crater and probably learn something about the geology (well, selenology) of that part of the moon," Gray said.
Iron sky... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: Iron sky... (Score:2)
The aliens (Score:3)
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Minus 2 points for calling it the "dark" side of the moon.
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There is no dark side of the Moon, really. As a matter of fact it's all dark.
Re: The aliens (Score:2)
there is no Earthshine on that side lf the moon. Have you ever been out on a moonless night? It's pretty dark.
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The Earth is a *lot* brighter in the moon's sky than the moon is in Earth's sky too. So it only gets properly dark on the near side during eclipses. The far side spends half the time in starlit darkness.
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I wanted to post "Again"?
Slashdot stories are a good sign we live in the Matrix.
SpaceX Lands on the Moon! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: SpaceX Lands on the Moon! (Score:2)
Lol!! So true, first private launch to reach the moon. They should have a party at SpaceX. Iâ(TM)m guessing also happy itâ(TM)ll stay there and not come whipping around to Earth like a hammer.
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Second. Beresheet beat them to it.
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Blue Origin wants to be part of the moon landing contract but cant attain orbit. Meanwhile, SpaceX gets to the moon accidentally.
(Jeff) "Quit showing off, asshole."
(Elon) "Hey man I swear, I didn't even say 'Hold My Bezos' that time.."
Re: SpaceX Lands on the Moon! (Score:2)
Actually how hard would it be for SpaceX to use it's reusable booster landing technology for landing on the moon? Seems like it would be easier based on gravity, but may harder given the lack of atmosphere. How much does the current landing system rely on air resistance? It has the grid fins for precision landing, but without those would it still be able to land at all?
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The boosters do need air braking to slow down before landing on Earth, but landing on the Moon would not be using the same hardware anyway. The booster's main job is to launch from Earth into space so it's a mostly-empty fuel tank by the time it starts the landing sequence. A moon lander would probably be designed to start with full tanks at lunar orbit insertion, and since it never deals with Earth gravity it would have a much less powerful rocket engine. Some of the technology like control software is app
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I, for one, welcome our new space debris overlords!
Too bad it's not the Tesla (Score:2)
If it survived the crash and landed right side up, it might prove a bit of a mystery for space-faring aliens.
Where is that thing, anyway?
Re: Too bad it's not the Tesla (Score:5, Informative)
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What a GREAT site! There's some serious (and regularly updating) astrophysical computations going on there!
And hopefully that orbital animation is misleading, and there won't be any conflicts with Mars.
Re: Too bad it's not the Tesla (Score:2)
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Let's see. Consider an A4 printout of the Sun to Earth orbit. That would need to cover 150 million km in 297 mm of page, a little less than 2mm per million km. That would make the Sun a bit less than 2mm in diameter, and Earth about 24 micrometres across. That's about a quarter of an International Standard Human Hair across - just about visible to the una
Re:Too bad it's not the Tesla (Score:5, Interesting)
... which is giving essentially the same results as https://www.whereisroadster.co... [whereisroadster.com] ; it's a bit beyond the orbit of Mars at the moment. I think on it's 4th orbit? It's orbit osculates (is approximately mutually tangential) with Earth's orbit, but with a 1.53 year nominal orbit, it's unlikely to make a close approach to Earth for a long time into the future.
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Evil Genius (Score:2)
Stephen Colbert wondered if Elon Musk was a super villain, and here Musk is bombing the moon.
Where is James Bond when you need him?
Pre-launch checklist (Score:1)
Space Force! (Score:2)
They Should Make Elon (Score:1)
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Go and clean up his mess.
He is (accidentally) cleaning the mess. Crashing into the moon is the best thing that could have happened to the booster - one less piece of orbital debris floating around.