NASA has discovered a double crater on the moon from a collision with an unknown rocket

NASA reportedthat the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) discovered an unusual double crater on the Moon, which was formed as a result of the collision of an unknown rocket with the lunar surface on March 4, 2022.

Scientists do not have complete certainty about whose rocket fell on the moon, but the fall of the Chinese accelerator is considered as the main version.

Earlier this year, amateur astronomers and asteroid tracker Bill Gray found evidence that a disused booster was on a collision course with the moon. First supposedthat it is SpaceX's Falcon 9 second stage rocket, which was used to launch the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) probe in 2015. However, later additional calculations confirmedthat the most likely candidate was the upper stage of a Chinese rocket, namely the Long March 3C.

This rocket was launched as part of the Chang'e 5-T1 mission on October 23, 2014, during which the return to Earth of the descent vehicle for the automatic lunar station Chang'e-5 was practiced.

Because the impact was supposed to take place in the dark on the far side of the Moon, the event could not be observed from Earth. However, the LRO station was later able to take pictures of the crash site and send evidence confirming the impact near the Hertzsprung crater in the East Sea region.

Surprisingly, two impact craters were found at the crash site. Although before that, when rockets fell on the Moon, for example, in the case of the S-IVB carriers of the Apollo mission, single craters with irregular outlines usually formed.

Singles are usually formed due to the fact that most of the mass of the rocket is concentrated in the engine at one end, and the rest consists of empty fuel tanks. In the case of the Chinese rocket, the weight may have been distributed at both ends, causing a double whammy. However, there is no exact data on the configuration of the Long March 3C used in the framework of the Chang'e 5-T1 mission.