There is a new geographical feature of the moon thanks to the wayward spending a rocket hull that crashed into the surface of our lone natural satellite in March.
The impact occurred on the far side of the moon, out of sight of telescopes on Earth or in space at the time. But NASA commissioned its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to depict the crash site, and now those photos have finally arrived.
“Surprisingly, the crater is actually two craters, an eastern crater (18 meters in diameter, about 19.5 yards) superimposed on a western crater (16 meters in diameter, about 17.5 yards),” a NASA statement said Friday.
The crash was predicted in advance by amateur veteran astronomer Bill Gray, although he initially misidentified space debris as a SpaceX rocket. He later corrected himself by presenting evidence that it was actually a Chinese booster from the Chang’e 5-T1 lunar mission in 2014. Among the evidence he cited was confirmation by a team of researchers from the University of Arizona.
However, the Chinese government said Gray and the others were wrong. Gray claims that China is mixing its missions.
“The site is fully identified as a Chang’e 5-T1 booster,” Gray wrote in his blog after the LRO images were published.
NASA’s statement on Friday refused to speculate on the origin of the already deleted rocket.
“As the origin of the rocket’s body remains uncertain, the dual nature of the crater may indicate its identity,” he continued.
The space agency says the double crater is strange, noting that none of the impact craters from old Apollo-era rockets have left such a mark.
“The double crater was unexpected and could indicate that the rocket’s body had large masses at each end.”
This would be rather strange, as most rockets consist of an engine below and a fuel tank above it, which would probably be empty in this case.
A NASA spokesman emailed me Monday that “this object is not from a NASA mission” and directed me to the aforementioned study by the University of Arizona, which “most likely identified the origin of this object.”