NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured new images of a mysterious rocket crashing into the moon’s far side, leaving behind a double crater.
According to NASA, the collision resulted in two overlapping impact sites. One crater is 59 feet long and another is 52.5 feet long.
Astronomers had already predicted a collision after discovering an unidentified space object on a collision course with the moon. They were not, however, expecting a double crater.
“No other rocket body impacts on the moon created double craters,” the space agency said in the press release.
NASA said that the double crater can be caused by a rocket that has large masses on both its ends.
However, “a spent rocket has mass concentrated at the motor end; the rest of the rocket stage mainly consists of an empty fuel tank,” explained NASA.
The agency believes, however, that the mass on both ends of the rocket may help them identify its origin.Â
“I must confess that I’d naively thought it would be easier to find and would have been located shortly after impact,” said Bill Gray, the astronomer who first discovered the strange object and alerted NASA, in a blog Project Pluto.
So far, no country or organization has claimed responsibility for the collision.
