Recently, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) project team of Arizona State University in the United States discovered two large craters on the lunar surface. These two large craters have attracted widespread attention from the scientific community.
Friends who have observed the lunar surface will know that the lunar surface is pitted and covered with dense craters. The main reason is that the moon has no atmosphere to block meteorites , and meteorites can hit the surface without any resistance. Therefore, there are a lot of craters on the surface of the moon, and they vary in size, some are only tens of centimeters. , but the big ones can be hundreds of kilometers long. It is estimated that there are tens of thousands of lunar craters with a diameter greater than 10 kilometers.
There are so many craters on the moon's surface. Why have these two large craters attracted the attention of scientists?
Flying object hit the lunar surface
As early as March this year, scientists observed that a flying object weighing about 3 tons hit the surface of the moon. It was only recently confirmed that the surface of the moon was knocked out. The two large pits are 16 meters and 18 meters in diameter respectively. Because there are overlapping parts between the two pits, they are considered to be chain pits. The impact location of
is the Hertzsprung crater on the back side of the moon. Based on speculation based on relevant data, scientists tend to believe that these two large craters were caused by the impact of flying objects, but so far no one has come to claim this aircraft. In fact, in 2015, the Catalina Sky Survey System of the United States detected this flying object. This object was rotating around the earth, not the earth, so the possibility of it being an asteroid can be ruled out.
Of course, some scientists speculate that this flying object is likely to be the wreckage of the previous American Falcon 9 launch vehicle, but after calculations, this possibility has been ruled out.
But Professor Huang Shaopeng of Xi'an Jiaotong University believes that the object that hit the lunar surface this time is most likely the remains of a rocket. After all, scientists have repeatedly discovered the debris of the third stage of rockets on the surface of the moon. But being able to hit a series of craters is still very thought-provoking, and this may be the key to solving the mystery. Professor Huang Shaopeng believes that the object that hit this time is likely to be a flying object that is heavy at both ends.
In the past, it was more common to hit a crater, because the rocket body is connected to the engine and the fuel tank. Once the fuel is exhausted, one end will be heavy and the other will be light, and the heavier end will hit the ground first.
Some students may ask, could the unclaimed aircraft be an extraterrestrial object?
In fact, this possibility is very small. At present, scientists are more inclined to believe that the impactor this time is space junk left behind by previous human-launched rockets. After all, this kind of thing is actually somewhat commonplace.
Near-Earth Space Junk
From the time humans began to explore space, various satellites began to be scattered around the earth. Some were retired and some were eliminated, but they all eventually became suspended near the earth. of space junk. In fact, the hidden dangers of space junk are so great that they once threatened the International Space Station, which is dominated by the United States and Russia. In order to avoid collisions with space junk, it had to adjust its orbit many times.
In addition to the artificial satellite , there are also the remains of some rocket thrusters in low-Earth orbit. These space junks are 300-350 kilometers away from the earth and are moving at high speed around the earth. There is so much garbage, and the distance between the moon and the earth is so close, it is not unusual for the earth's space junk to hit the moon.
In order to solve the problem of space debris, scientists have also come up with many ways, such as the "Space Cleaner" project led by Japan and the "Hunter" project led by Australia. However, as the amount of space debris increases day by day, it will become more and more difficult to deal with this garbage in the future.
Summary:
Compared with the spacecraft launched by aliens, the two large craters that hit the lunar surface are more likely to be garbage created by humans in space. Of course, regardless of whether the impact was caused by space junk, the issue of space junk deserves our attention. Imagine from a God's perspective, looking at the earth from a long distance, it looks like a garbage dump.
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