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A fragment of a SpaceX rocket that deviated from its course eventually collided with the Moon. This debris was part of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket used to launch two lunar landers. Scientists reported that after this fragment began deviating from its trajectory about a year ago, it struck the Moon around Wednesday.

The size of this fragment was comparable to a school bus, and its mass was estimated at four metric tons (4000 kilograms). Although official confirmation of the collision at a speed of 5400 miles per hour (8700 km/h) has not yet been received, space tracking experts believe that the rocket remnant was bound to hit the Moon.

It was hypothesized that the impact of this space debris would cause a cloud of lunar dust to rise. This dust might shine under sunlight, but observing it with the naked eye from Earth is difficult.

This is another instance of debris accumulation on the Moon. Many fear that this problem could worsen due to the race between America and China to send astronauts to the Moon. In 2022, a Chinese rocket accidentally collided with the Moon after a lunar mission, and there is a suggestion that many other rocket fragments may have hit the Moon over the past decades without scientists knowing.

Juliana Shaiman from SpaceX stated that the company is cooperating with NASA to prevent similar incidents in the future. She emphasized that the collision was not intentional. According to her, a combination of solar activity and gravity led the object onto a collision course with the Moon.

The approximate collision site was in the sunlit western part of the Moon, near the Einstein crater. This area on the edge of the near and far sides of the Moon is very difficult to see from Earth. McDowell noted that, in his opinion, the rocket has now broken up into small fragments near the Einstein crater on the Moon. He also added that even if an asteroid had collided with the rocket during its final flight stage, its pieces would have fallen in the same location on the Moon.

Visual confirmation requires waiting for images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter flying over the accident zone and showing the formed crater. The space agency does not expect this to happen before next week.

The ground-based VLT telescope detected an emission trail that appeared on the surface of the Moon. This trail was formed after the Falcon 9 rocket booster stage landed on the Moon.

This emission was registered by the VLT telescope and lasted no more than ten minutes. Elements of sodium and lithium were found in this trail. This information was published by the European Southern Observatory via its Instagram social media account*.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to become a fundamental tool in the search for life outside of Earth in the coming years. This prediction was made by Jill Tarter, founder of the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and recognized as one of the world's leading authorities on investigating signals from alien civilizations.

During her participation in the Rio Innovation Week event, held this Tuesday (4th), the scientist mentioned that the institute's new generation of telescopes is already being adapted to operate with AI-based systems. These systems will have the capacity to automatically determine where the equipment should be directed and what data should be collected, following the latest scientific discoveries.

According to Tarter, general artificial intelligence (AGI) will also play a crucial role in processing the vast volume of information captured by radio telescopes. She stated: 'We are replacing the first agent telescope, so that pointing and data collection will be decided by a machine and assisted by the most recent information, according to our understanding of what science is doing.'

Challenges of the Research

Tarter emphasized that the main difficulty in the search is not merely technological. She pointed out that scientists still do not precisely know what types of signals should be sought or how an extraterrestrial civilization could establish communication. To illustrate this obstacle, she compared the search for alien intelligence to the efforts made to understand the language of dolphins, primates, and birds here on Earth.

Additionally, the immense scale of the Milky Way greatly complicates the work. According to her, to investigate a larger portion of ten or one hundred million stars in the Milky Way, it will be necessary to rely not only on more powerful telescopes but also on much more robust transmitters than those currently existing on the planet. Thus, technological evolution will be decisive in expanding this investigative capacity.

During the lecture, Tarter made a distinction between the scientific research conducted by the SETI Institute and reports related to UFOs (unidentified flying objects). She argued that such occurrences must be examined with skeptical rigor and detailed investigation, prioritizing physical and statistical explanations before any extraordinary conclusion.

Personal Journey

The astronomer also shared the adversities she faced at the beginning of her career because she was a woman. She reported losing a scholarship after getting married and studying engineering at a time when women represented a minority in universities. In 1965, less than 23% of students at Cornell University were women, and in the engineering faculty, female representation was less than 1%, including herself.

However, she observed a significant change in this landscape. Currently, Tarter stated, more than half of the students at Cornell University (USA) are women, a percentage that is also reached at the institution's School of Engineering.