A large amount of space debris is predicted to hit the Moon in the near future. When colliding with the body of the Moon, the space debris will leave a fairly large crater.
Usually, when space junk is thrown into the depths of the universe, no one cares to track it down. Most of the time this trash when flying through space, without the risk of crashing into anything. But of course this is not always the case. We've seen space junk crash into the International Space Station or ISS in 2021.
Quoted from BGR, this latest piece of space junk has attracted public attention because it has a target, and that is the Moon. Some people believe that the trash in question is rocket debris. The debris is currently being tracked and is expected to hit the far side of the Moon on Friday, March 4, 2022. When it hits, it will be traveling at 5,800 mph.
Scientists estimate the space junk will make a hole of about 10 to 20 meters. They also predict this event will fly a ton of Moondust or dust from the Moon that is up to hundreds of miles across its surface.
Unfortunately, we don't seem to be able to confirm the occurrence of this event, because the space junk will strike the side of the Moon that is difficult to observe. But with a bit of luck, maybe Mexico's Project Colmena, the first lunar rover, could use its robots to explore the impact craters of space debris later this year.
Another interesting part about space junk that will hit the Moon is, it is not yet known who is most responsible, at least in an official capacity.
Last January, asteroid tracker Bill Gray identified a collision course for space debris with the Moon. He initially suspected that it was fragments of a SpaceX Falcon rocket launched in 2015. But later, he said it was likely that the debris was pieces of a Chinese rocket from 2014.
Previously, China was considered to be the culprit of the horrific space-related incidents. In 2020, one of China's space launches failed when the booster fell back to Earth. Worse, this booster fell near a school.
But China argues that the upper stage of its test capsule re-enters Earth's atmosphere and then burns up. Meanwhile, US Space Command said it did not detect any objects entering Earth's atmosphere when the event occurred.
Regarding the space debris that will soon hit the Moon this time, no one can really confirm the origin of the object. In the end, who is to blame doesn't really matter here. What is clear is that space debris is a critical problem that must be dealt with immediately so that it is not dangerous.