"I had been hoping for something (significant) to hit the moon for a long time. It's unlikely India's moon-orbiting Chandrayaan-2 will be passing by then, either. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will also be out of range. 11, 2022.Ĭhina has a lunar lander on the moon's far side, but it will be too far away to detect Friday's impact just north of the equator. Impact craters cover the surface of the moon, seen from Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, Jan. With no weather, there's no erosion and so impact craters last forever. With little to no real atmosphere, the moon is defenseless against the constant barrage of meteors and asteroids, and the occasional incoming spacecraft, including a few intentionally crashed for science's sake. The moon already bears countless craters, ranging up to 1,600 miles. It'll leave yet another small crater on the moon." Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics supports Gray's revised assessment, but notes: "The effect will be the same. "But I really just don't see any way it could be anything else." "I've become a little bit more cautious of such matters," he said. Gray, a mathematician and physicist, said he's confident now that it's China's rocket.
"We focus on objects closer to the Earth," a spokesperson said in a statement. But it could not confirm the country of origin for the object about to strike the moon. Space Command, which tracks lower space junk, confirmed Tuesday that the Chinese upper stage from the 2014 lunar mission never deorbited, as previously indicated in its database. observers believe the two are getting mixed up. But there were two Chinese missions with similar designations - the test flight and 2020′s lunar sample return mission - and U.S.
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