China: Piece of space debris hitting the moon on March 4th is not ours

On March 4 at 11:25 AM, a man-made object inadvertently collided with the Moon for the first time; remnants of a missile. We can’t see it from here because it happens on the far side. The consequences for the moon will be nil, given all the craters that characterize the landscape, they are accustomed to it.

If the event causes a tangible impact anywhere, it will be here on Earth. Because responsibility for the piece of space debris is disputed. Astronomer Bill Gray was the first to discover that a piece of space debris would crash into the Moon. He said it might have been part of the remnants of a missile It will be from SpaceX Billionaire Elon Musk’s company.

However, a NASA engineer explained to him that this could not be true: according to him, it should be a Chinese-made launcher. In 2014, China launched the Chang’e 5-T1 unmanned mission. NASA says the launch vehicle has then been launched into high Earth orbit and is now heading to the moon. But China denies this: “According to Chinese monitoring, the Chang’e 5 missile safely reached the Earth’s atmosphere, where it completely burned up.”

space debris

PhD students at the University of Arizona Results confirmed from NASA. The color spectrum of the object corresponds to a Chinese missile, not a SpaceX missile.

And also Bill Gray, discoverer of the drift rocket, now convinced Of Chinese origin. Gray says he’s the only one using homemade software to track this type of debris high above the ground. Space agencies do not care about this, because this debris does not pose any danger to Earth, unlike debris in low orbit. However, Gray hopes this event will draw more attention to space debris in general.

China, too, has experience dropping space debris onto Earth uncontrollably. In those cases, the Chinese often try to mitigate personal risk and liability. In May last year, the remnants of the Chinese Long March 5B missile led to Warnings from international space experts†

It was one of the largest pieces of space debris to uncontrollably enter Earth’s atmosphere in three decades. Whether the missile lacked the technology to crash Earth in a controlled manner, or whether it was malfunctioning, remains unknown. China called the warnings “Western propaganda” and caused panic.

There was a good chance he would drown in the sea – it happened in the end too – Or on an uninhabited plot, but there was certainly a danger. A year ago there was still a piece of the same type of missile In a cheese factory in Ivory Coast This has led to strong criticism from the West over China’s handling of space debris.

crater

In 2018, the Chinese space station Tiangong-1 went unchecked after China failed to communicate with the space station in 2016. However, China did not want to hear about the term “uncontrolled”.

A piece of space debris heading toward the moon will cause fewer problems. The object weighs about four tons and hits the moon at a speed of more than 9,000 kilometers per hour. That would leave a crater, just as it did when NASA intentionally collided with a rover on the moon in 2009. Then a crater 28 meters in diameter formed.

Compared to the impact of heavier, faster-moving natural space objects such as meteors, the impact on the Moon is probably nothing more than a ball on the cheek.