NASA's lunar Orbiter reveals location of unusual double crater

The images shared by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been circling the moon since 2009, have revealed the location of the unusual crater.

The impact created two craters that overlap, an eastern crater measuring 59 feet 18 meters across and a western crater spanning 52.5 feet 16 meters together, creating a depression that is roughly 91.8 feet 28 meters wide in the longest dimension.

Although astronomers expected the impact after discovering that the rocket part was on track to collide with the moon, the double crater it created was a surprise.

The majority of spent rockets have the most mass at the motor end, because the rest of the rocket is largely empty fuel tank. The double crater suggests that this object had large masses at both ends when it hit the moon.

The double crater could help astronomers determine what the rocket body is, because it's not clear what it is, a piece of space junk that has been careening around for years. The moon has a protective atmosphere, so it is littered with craters created by objects like asteroids that regularly slam into the surface. This was the first time a piece of space junk hit the lunar surface that experts know of. There have been craters that have resulted from spacecraft being deliberately crashed into the moon. The new crater is smaller than others and not visible in this view, but its location is indicated by the white arrow. Four large moon craters attributed to the Apollo 13, 14, 15 and 17 missions are all much larger than each of the overlapping craters created during the March 4 impact. The maximum width of the new double crater is similar to the Apollo craters. Bill Gray, an independent researcher who specializes in orbital dynamics and the developer of astronomical software, was the first to spot the trajectory of the rocket booster. In 2015, Gray had initially identified it as the SpaceX Falcon rocket stage that launched the US Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR in 2015, but later said he'd gotten that wrong and it was likely from a 2014 Chinese lunar mission, an assessment that NASA agreed with. The rocket in question burned up on return to Earth's atmosphere. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied that the booster was from its Chang'e 5 moon mission, saying the rocket in question burned up on reentry to Earth's atmosphere. This is the space graveyard where the International Space Station will be buried. No agencies systematically track space debris so far away from Earth, and the confusion surrounding the rocket stage has underscored the need for official agencies to monitor deep-space junk rather than relying on the limited resources of private individuals and academics. The challenge is the space debris in low-Earth orbit, an area where it can collide with functioning satellites, create more junk and threaten human life on crewed spacecraft. There are at least 26,000 pieces of space junk orbiting Earth that are the size of a softball or larger and could destroy a satellite on impact, over 500,000 objects the size of a marble, and over 100 million pieces of tiny debris that could damage a spacesuit, according to a NASA report last year.