AFTER seven-year of space odyssey, a three-tonne piece of Chinese rocket debris slammed into the Moon, creating a 65 feet wide crater on the lunar surface, the media reported. The event took place at 7.25 AM EST on the lunar far side, on Friday. As a result NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter could not get a look at the crash. “We certainly have an interest in finding the impact crater and will attempt to do so over the coming weeks and months,” John Keller, the deputy project scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission said. “We will not be near the impact site when it takes place so we won’t be able to directly observe it.

 

The onboard narrow angle cameras have sufficient resolution to detect the crater but the Moon is full of fresh impact craters, so positive identification is based on before and after images. The debris was first reported by Bill Gray, an astronomer running Project Pluto. Gray first claimed that the debris is from Elon Musk owned SpaceX rocket. But later Gray predicted that the object is a leftover piece of a Chinese rocket, specifically a Long March 3C that launched China’s Chang’e 5-T1 mission to the Moon. But China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the claim.