Mystery Moon Rocket Crash: NASA Finds Weird New ‘Double Crater’ On The Moon’s Far Side

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter found an unusual way to celebrate its thirteenth anniversary in orbit of the Moon this summer—by locating a mysterious “double crater”.

The new rocket impact site on the Moon was spotted near the huge Hertzsprung crater on the far side of the Moon.

NASA knows a rocket crashed into the Moon at roughly this location on March 4, 2022, but it remains unidentified. It was traveling at around 5,700 mph when it struck the Moon.

The new double crater is 28 meters wide in the longest dimension, according to NASA. The space agency also stated that the eastern crater is 18-meters in diameter and it’s superimposed on a western crater that’s 16-meters in diameter.

“The double crater was unexpected and may indicate that the rocket body had large masses at each end,” said the NASA news release. “Typically a spent rocket has mass concentrated at the motor end; the rest of the rocket stage mainly consists of an empty fuel tank.”

“Since the origin of the rocket body remains uncertain, the double nature of the crater may indicate its identity.”

The rocket smash happened at exactly 7:25:58 a.m. EST/12:25:58 Universal Time on March 4, 2022.

It was thought at the time that the spent rocket part could have been leftover from the launch in 2014 of a Long March 3C rocket from China’s Xichang Satellite Launch Center. That rocket took China’s Chang’e 5-T1 spacecraft to the Moon.

A physics-based animation generated by AGI just prior to that crash shows what might have happened on March 4:

This is not the first time rockets have crashed into the Moon—and that’s partly why this one is suspicious.

Rockets used to launch the Apollo 13, 14, 15 and 17 missions in the 1960s and 1070s were intentionally crashed into the Moon to see what would happen, but none of them created double craters of the kind now witnessed. However, they were substantially larger.

It’s possible that India’s Chandrayaan-2, also of which are in orbit around the Moon, will also be able to photograph the new double crater.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.