A large chunk of Space X’s Falcon 9 rocket is expected to slam into the moon at 2:35 Wednesday morning. Traveling at 5,400 miles per hour, the impact is expected to create a debris cloud of nearly 800,000 pounds that will vent upward, creating a new crater.
The Adirondack Sky Center and Observatory plans to livestream the collision and will also open its rooftop observatory for live public viewing. Founding member Mark Staves (like braves without the br) discussed the rocket part's unfortunate trajectory with WAMC North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley.
It's quite large and should leave a crater that's going to be about 30 to 50 meters across. It's going to launch a lot of debris into the moon's thin atmosphere and that's what we're hoping to catch. We probably won't see the actual impact take place. But we're going to be, this evening, trying to do some video recording and a live feed of it as well from the observatory with the equipment that we have there and our hope is that we'll be able to at least catch the plume from the ejecta that gets thrown up into the atmosphere.
When you are able to monitor a plume like that, what can you potentially learn?
There's a multitude of things that will be looked at: how much debris is potentially put into the atmosphere, might give an idea of how much thickness that there is with the lunar surface and things like that.
How different is this strike by Falcon 9 compared to meteors striking the moon?
The density is going to be a lot higher with a meteor because you know you're talking about bodies that are comprised of primarily iron and there's a level of density there that's orders of magnitude greater than what the Falcon 9 would be.
How often do we see meteors striking the moon?
It's not very common that we see it happen. With the Artemis 2 they were seeing flashes that were being detected by the astronauts on board the Artemis that weren't being detected by the cameras. So, having a human presence is always better than something that's automated for observational purposes.
Mark Staves, the Adirondack Sky Center and Observatory is going to be not only live streaming this, but it's going to be open for public viewing. How are you doing the public viewing?
Our public viewing events are pretty regular. We open up the observatory and people come in and initially we try and do a brief talk before we start observing and learn about possibly what we're going to be seeing that evening and what to expect. And then once that concludes, it's usually dark enough to go inside the observatory and start observing. And there's literally thousands of things that you can see in the night sky from our equipment and some of them are millions of light years away and some of them are thousands of light years away. And we have four permanently mounted telescopes. And we will be open this evening. Starting around 9 – 9:30 we should start being able to observe and we'll be open until the Falcon 9 event is over.
Mark, you mentioned there's so many things out there that you guys can monitor and observe. What are the odds of other rockets or space debris hitting the moon?
I'm sure that they're not real high. Of course, the frequency that we're putting stuff up there now is probably going to be a little bit more activity in that regard.
How excited are you for tonight?
Just the coolness factor alone of being able to see something that's you know a quarter million miles away. That alone in itself is pretty exciting.
The Adirondack Sky Center and Observatory says the piece that will impact the moon is part of the Falcon 9’s upper stage and is about the size of a five-story building.
