A SpaceX rocket slamming into the Moon is a reminder to clean up our deep space junk
For the last seven years, a leftover piece of an old SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has been circling the Earth on a very wide orbit, having a pretty unremarkable time. But that’s all about to change on March 4th, when this rocket piece is predicted to accidentally slam into the far side of the Moon. And according to the astronomer who first figured this out, it’s a reminder that we need to take better care of our deep space junk.
The doomed component is part of a rocket that launched from Florida in February of 2015. The vehicle lofted a particularly valuable satellite for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration called DSCOVR, which monitors solar winds coming from the Sun to better predict space weather. In order to perform its job...