It was easy for people to play the blame game when a mysterious rocket crashed into the Moon back in 2022, yet scientists have revealed who the owner actually is and it's not who you'd expect it to be.
Objects crash into the Moon all the time, and the recent reveal that city-killing asteroid 2024 YR4 is now due to strike the floating space rock actually garnered excitement for many within the scientific community.
It's soft and sand-like surface is covered in craters made from years and years of collisions, so news that a mysterious rocket crashed into the Moon in 2022 didn't necessarily make news through people's shock, but instead the intrigue of many who wished to know the capsule's owner.
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As a leading figure within the private space world and pioneer of rocket tests, many immediately pointed their fingers towards Elon Musk and SpaceX as the likely culprits, claiming specifically that it was the company's Falcon 9 rocket that caused the 29-meter-wide crater.
Who was behind the rocket that collided with the Moon in 2022?
However, new research has revealed that Musk likely wasn't actually behind the lunar collision, and it was in fact another party that caused the mystery twin impact marks on the Moon's surface.
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As reported by Jason Deegan, scientists now indicate that it was China's space program that likely owned the object that crashed into the Moon, and it was the nation's Long March 3C rocket that did the damage.
This particular rocket was part of China's Chang'e 5-T1 lunar mission program, and it was one of the more popular theories for many within the space community - although Musk and SpaceX remained favorites for a long time.
How did researchers figure it out?
This revelation was discovered by a new study published in the Planetary Science Journal, led by University of Arizona PhD candidate Tanner Campbell.
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Using trajectory and spectroscopic analysis from ground-based telescopes, Campbell and his co-authors were able to conclusively indentify that the mystery object - known within the space community at WE0913A - was the Long March 3C rocket.
"Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling and a predictive light curve simulation based on an anisotropic Phong reflection model, we estimate both physical and dynamical properties of the Chang'e 5-T1 R/B at the start of an observation epoch," the study explains.
They also outlined that their analysis discovered additional mass on the front of the rocket's body, which supports their hypothesis that this was necessary to the creation of a twin impact on the Moon, only furthering the proof that this rocket came from China's space program.