SpaceX ship to smash into the moon next week and the blast could be visible from Earth
It’s one small crash for man.Just months after the historic Artemis II Mission, humanity will witness yet another trip to the moon on August 5.But this time, the lunar landing is unplanned — our rocky satellite will be impacted by an errant component from a SpaceX craft.As predicted months ago, the upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket is a week away from colliding with the moon at more than seven times the speed of sound.
The impact will add a new crater to its pockmarked surface and kick up a dust plume that will potentially be visible from Earth, USA Today reported.Coincidentally, this collision course marks a return for the spacecraft, which was part of the launch that sent two landers — the Blue Ghost-1 by Texas-based firm Firefly and Japan’s Resilience — to the moon on Jan.
15, 2025, according to Space.com.With its mission complete, the 8,800-pound uncrewed spacecraft part lacked the fuel to return to Earth or move into deep space.Instead it remained in orbital limbo until gravity slingshotted it toward the moon, where it is slated to crash on the near side the Einstein crater on August 5.While permanently reshaping the moon’s surface is not ideal, the unplanned journey to the moon will afford scientists the rare opportunity to study the real-time effects of a lunar impact.As part of a non-peer-reviewed study published in preprint server arxiv, University of Texas grad student William Jo used a special physics simulation to model the collision.
His team predicted that the debris column will have a central ejecta spike reaching between 47 miles and over 60 miles high.Meanwhile, new research led by New Mexico planetary scientist Benjamin Fernando suggested that the impact crater would be around 66-to-98 feet wide — which is sizable but smaller than an asteroid-induced pockmark because the spacecraft is hollowBut will we be able to see the flash from the crash? It’s hard to say.“Our calculations suggest the plume should be several orders of...