The rocket that will hit the Moon is from China and not from SpaceX | Digital Trends Spanish

In January, a group of astronomers warned that the second stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was close to hitting the Moon.

The experts also explained that the crash will only leave a new crater on its surface, despite how catastrophic it may seem.

Now, a new investigation denies that the rocket is from Elon Musk’s company. According to scientists, the device involved is the propellant of a Long March 3C rocket that was used during the Chinese mission Chang’e 5-T1 in 2014.

NASA astronomer Jon Giorgioni was the one who realized that the trajectory of the second stage of the Falcon 9 launched in 2015 does not match the one followed by the piece of space junk that is on its way to the Moon.

Astronomers discovered the bug through the Pluto Project, software that tracks the trajectory of objects near our planet.

The Chinese rocket was identified as WE0913A, which was part of a mission to collect lunar samples.

Thus, the time of its launch and the trajectory coincide with the orbit of the object that will hit the Moon. According to the researchers, this will happen on March 4.

This will be the first time a rocket has unintentionally cratered the Moon. In the 1950s, the upper stages of the Apollo missions collided with the Moon to cause small detectable tremors.

NASA, for its part, crashed the LCROSS spacecraft into the lunar surface in 2009 to analyze the particles that were released due to the impact.

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