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This may not be a rocket launch scheduled to hit the Moon on March 4 SpaceX after every thing.
The astronomer credited with discovering the impending collision, Bill Gray, announced Saturday (February 12) that he made a mistake in identifying the rocket as the ancient Falcon 9 rocket stage that helped. The launch of the Climate Observatory satellite into deep space in 2015.
Alternatively, Gray notes, the scene may have been part of the Long March 3C rocket that launched a rocket from the Moon to China. Chang’e 5-T1 mission In October 2014. This spacecraft was a precursor to Chang’e 5The 2020 mission that returned an automated sample to the Moon.)
gray tracks Project Pluto Software used to track and position near-Earth objects Correction Notice on its website on Saturday, February 12, after receiving a note from John Giorgini, an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
” he [Giorgini] Eric wrote to Gray on Saturday morning to explain that the DSCOVR spacecraft’s trajectory didn’t come particularly close to the Moon, so it would be a little strange for the second phase of the Moon to get close. ” Ars Technicawho reported stray reinforcements three weeks ago on Saturday.
Video: The phase of the rocket’s collision with the moon with the virtual telescope project
The rocket stage should always start, regardless of the origin Hit the far side of the moon On March 4, at 7:25 AM ET (12:25 PM GMT), it will not be visible from Earth. However, Gray explained on his website why he believed he had made an identification error.
“Based on John’s email, I dug through my email archives to remember why the item was originally identified as a DSCOVR Phase in the first place seven years ago. I did this research with confidence that it would prove that the object was, in fact, a DSCOVR Phase 2, ” gray books update it.
Gray wrote that he used data from the Catalina Sky Survey, which usually tracks near-Earth objects, to assess threats to Earth. Catalina found an object about a month after DSCOVR was launched, which was designated WE0913A and initially thought to be a natural object.
“Soon afterwards, an astronomer in Brazil noticed in a chat group that the object was orbiting the Earth, not the Sun, indicating that it could be a man-made object. After a few conversations with the astronomer, Gray and other researchers discovered that WE0913A It has crossed the moon two days after DSCOVR was launched.
“I and others have come to accept the second stage association [of Falcon 9] correctly. The object was about the brightness we expected, appeared at the expected time, and moved in a reasonable orbit,” Gray continued, but noted that the evidence was ‘apparent,’ not entirely conclusive.
“In hindsight,” Gray continued, “I should have noticed some strange things about WE0913A’s orbit. Assuming there were no maneuvers, it would have made a rather strange orbit around the Earth before hovering over the moon. At its highest point, It will soon orbit the Moon; at its lowest point (perihelion), about a third of that distance. I expected perihelion to be close to the Earth’s surface. Perigee seemed very high.”
At first, Gray thought these differences might be due to fuel leaks, which are very common on older rocket stages. However, such a DISCOVR course change would have required an extraordinary amount of fuel, even if it was still possible.
“I didn’t have a DSCOVR track at the time, and flying over the moon seemed reasonable to me. [as] Spacecraft often use lunar flights to modify their orbits,” Gray said. But after receiving the email, he searched the records for an object launched shortly before March 2015, into “high orbit passing over the moon.”
This led him to Chang’e 5 T1; The evidence isn’t entirely conclusive yet and is based on its time-predicted orbit, but additional confidence comes from Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who typically tracks space objects and space junk.
McDowell sent orbital elements to cubesat amateur radio Gray who’s got ‘Sharing a Journey’ with the summons, a very close game, wrote, ‘In a sense, it remains evidence of circumstances. But I would take that as fairly compelling evidence.’
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