NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) discovered on the Moon the crash site of a mysterious rocket that crashed into Earth's satellite on March 4. Images taken on May 25 show a double impact crater, Science Alert reports..

It is noted that double craters are unusual, but their formation is not impossible.. Especially if the object fell at a slight angle. But that doesn't seem to be the case..

[see_also ids\u003d"

According to astronomer Bill Gray, who discovered the unusual object and predicted it would hit the moon back in January, the booster " So this is not an explanation for this object."

The impact site is an 18 meter diameter eastern crater, which is superimposed on a 16 meter diameter western crater.. According to Mark Robinson, chief specialist of the LRO Camera team, such a crater could form an object with distinct large masses at each end..

“Usually a spent rocket has mass concentrated at the end of the engine; the rest of the rocket stage mostly consists of an empty fuel tank,” he said..

So what hit the moon? An unidentified rocket attracted the attention of astronomers at the beginning of the year. Then it was assumed that this was the upper stage of the SpaceX launch vehicle, which launched the NASA Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) in 2015, bringing it to the Lagrange point L1.

Gray, who developed space debris tracking software, noticed the object when his software showed an error.. The program could not calculate the trajectory of the object after March 4, because then it should have crashed into the moon.

Gray published his data and it quickly attracted the attention of scientists and media around the world.. But a few weeks later, he received an email from John Georgini at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.. He pointed out that the trajectory of DSCOVR should not have brought the launch vehicle to the moon.. In an attempt to reconcile conflicting trajectories, Gray began digging through his data, where he discovered that he had misidentified the DSCOVR launch vehicle back in 2015..

That is, SpaceX was not involved in this. But there was another rocket, a fragment of which was rushing to the moon.

A little investigation by Gray showed that it could be the upper stage of a Chinese rocket that participated in the Chang'e-5-T1 mission in 2014.. Data that confirmed this theory was also provided by astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell..

Seems like the secret is out. But a few days later, China's interior minister declared that it was not a Chinese missile.. The rocket fell into the ocean shortly after launch, according to Chinese authorities..

At the same time, Gray believes that a fragment of a Chinese rocket crashed into the moon.. According to the astronomer, the Chinese minister confused the carrier rocket of the Chang'e-5-T1 mission with the carrier of the Chang'e-5, which really fell into the ocean.

As for the impact crater itself, finding it so quickly is amazing.. The site of the rocket crash was found just a few months after the event. By comparison, it took more than six years of meticulous searching to find the Apollo 16 S-IVB impact crater..