Space junk hits moon at 5,800mph; China denies responsibility

An out- of- control rocket part the size of a school bus has likely smashed into the Moon's surface by now.

According to astronomers, a rocket booster was set to hit the lunar surface at around 7.25am ET (12:25 GMT) Saturday, after spending nearly eight years tumbling through space.

It was likely the first time a manmade object has crashed into another space body without being aimed there, but we won't know that it hit the Moon for sure until two satellites that orbit the Moon pass over the possible impact site and photograph any crater that resulted from the collision, the BBC reported.

The rocket part was first spotted by Bill Gray, who writes the popular Project Pluto software to track near- Earth objects. He reported that the junk was a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage launched from Florida by Elon Musk's team in February 2015.

However, Bill later retracted his claim and said the rocket part most likely belonged to China. China has since denied the accusation.

The lump of metal is predicted to produce a 65-footlong crater, approximately the size of a tractor-trailer, and break into who-knowshow- many pieces after it travelled at an estimated 3.3 miles per second.

According to CNN, there are at least 26,000 pieces of space junk orbiting Earth that are the size of a softball or larger and could destroy a satellite on impact; over 500,000 marble-sized objects that could cause damage to spacecraft or satellites; and over 100 million pieces the size of a grain of salt that could puncture a spacesuit.

Per CNN, no institutions follow space junk so far from Earth in a systematic fashion.

The mystery surrounding the rocket stage's origin has highlighted the need for official agencies to more closely monitor deepspace garbage rather than depending on the limited resources of private people and academics.

Experts believe the biggest problem is space debris in low- Earth orbit, where it may smash with operational satellites, generate additional junk, and endanger human life on crewed spacecraft, according to CNN.

The rocket part's origin is unknown, according to CNN.

Bill Gray, manager of Project Pluto, originally mistook it for the SpaceX Falcon rocket stage that launched the US Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, in 2015.

He subsequently admitted that he was mistaken and that it was most likely from a 2014 Chinese lunar mission, which NASA concurred with.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the other hand, disputed that the booster was from the Chang'e- 5 moon mission, claiming that the rocket had burnt upon reentry to Earth's atmosphere.