![]() ![]() Observations on it between January 15 and 21. It kept going up to apogee, then returned to where we could get more On the way, it passed about 9600 km from the moon on January 5, atġ2:20 UTC that's the "kink" you can see at that point. Here's the play-by-play on the above :Īfter a close-ish flyby on January 1, the object started climbing back toĪpogee. So that there have been gradual (and sometimes sudden) changes ever since This one sort of orbits theĮarth in an elongated ellipse, but the effects of the moon perturb it Red circle at center, and the black track shows where the DSCOVR stage The green circle shows the orbit of the moon the earth is the Trails its path sometimes changes quite a bit, because it gets close enoughīelow, you can see the path of the object Pulling on it gently.) The DSCOVR stage is the green object leaving green In a nice, regular ellipse (there are some changes because the sun is In both animations, the moon is on the white trail that (mostly) repeats System will give you a different angle (literally) on where theĭSCOVR stage will be between now and 2022 March 4. This animation showing the same motion but from directly above the earth-moon This shows the path as seen from the "side" of the earth-moon system This animation showing the motion of the object during 2022 Which is a good thing for an Earth impactor (they burn up high in theĪtmosphere) but makes less sense for the moon. Set to consider an "impact" as occurring at an altitude of 50 kilometers, With the new, official, IAU system, it's on the westĪlso, my apologies an earlier version of this page had the impactĢ0 seconds earlier and a few kilometers away. "Mare Orientale" was named that back when "east" meant that Longitude 243 is on the side toward Mare Orientale, not the side toward On other planets I had to go through some contortions to confirm that The IAU (InternationalĪstronomical Union) has made a dog's breakfast out of cartographic systems Time there, with the sun shining down almost from directly above. ![]() When the impact happens, it'll actually be not far from "noon" local One where the sun isn't shining, also known as the "night side"). We don't get to see from Earth), not the dark side (the The impact will be at the large green 'X', on the far side of the moon, in Theoretically, this is good toĪ few seconds and a few kilometers, but reality is less certain ![]() January and February (i.e., all the data we'll ever have), puts theĪt latitude +5.36, longitude 234.93. My current estimate, based on all the astrometry we got during Is there confirmation that it actually hit?.Should SpaceX/China be held liable for this?.What was the timeline on figuring this out?.How confident are we it'll hit where/when predicted?.My apologies if this confuses more than it helps! This impact has gotten considerable attention outside the "usual"Īstronomical community, and I've tried to add some answers to questions. Everything else on this page was written/computed by me (Bill The actual observational data was provided by the I'm quite grateful for the data that gets sent to me.) More of a "mathematical" astronomer than an "observing at the telescope" This object was annoyingly close to the sun. Statement the object isn't actually the 5-T1 upper stage (2022 Mar 4) Added a comment about confirmation of impact #Moon invoice estimates based on projects updatePseudo-MPEC for 2014-065B = NORAD 40284 = Chang'e 5-T1 booster = lunar impactor on 2022 Mar 04 Pseudo-MPEC for 2014-065B = NORAD 40284 = Chang'e 5-T1 booster = lunar impactor on 2022 Mar 04Ĭreated 2022 Jan 21 16:43:51 UT using Find_OrbĮxplanation of pseudo-MPECs UPDATE : resulting impact crater has been imaged UPDATE : corrected identification for this object! ![]()
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