BOWDOINHAM, MAINE — The upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is on a collision course with the Moon, according to a suite of astronomical software called Project Pluto, and news website Ars Technica.
According to The Guardian, the rocket was launched in 2015 to send the NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory to the Lagrange Point 1, a gravity-neutral position four times farther than the Moon and in direct line with the Sun, where it can monitor solar winds.
However, while Falcon 9’s upper stages are usually redirected back to Earth’s atmosphere to burn up, this one needed all of its propellant to send the DSCOVR satellite so far out, and also ‘lacked the energy to escape the gravity of the Earth-Moon system,’ according to Ars Technica.
The result was that for the last seven years the derelict upper stage, weighing around four metric tonnes, ended up in orbit around Earth, passing the orbit of the Moon, with an impact on the Moon’s far side now set for March 4, 2022, according to Pluto Project calculations.
The rocket’s weight, and speed of around 9,290 kilometers per hour, will likely create a divot 10 to 20 meters wide, according to one professor of earth and space exploration cited by The New York Times.
