A simulation video shows how a piece of rocket crashing into the moon on March 4 may have looked. Take a look for yourself:
According to astronomers, debris from a rocket - believed to be from China's Chang'e 5-T1 mission hit the moon - could've caused a crater in the moon.
The simulated footage by AGI shows the moment the rocket hit the moon's surface and the resulting impact. China denies that it was their rocket.
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The video posted to AGI's YouTube channel is captioned 'Alternative wide view of the Chang’e booster impact with the Moon on March 4th, 2022'.
Astronomers believe that the school bus sized debris could have created a crater on the moon, as per the New York Post.
However, it will be unclear whether the simulation is accurate, until two satellites pass over the impact site.
The impact couldn't be covered 'live' as it occurred on the dark side of the moon but the rocket was set to hit the moon near the 354-mile-wide Hertzsprung Crater, at around 12:25 GMT.
Astronomer Bill Grey, who heads the Pluto Project program tracks far away objects and initially linked the debris to a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched in 2015.
There was then a correction to this theory, with Gray noting that the rocket doesn't match Space X but more closely resembles the one launches as part of china's Chang'e 5-T1 mission in 2014.
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The latter theory was supported by Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
However, in a statement regarding the topic, China's foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said: "According to China's monitoring, the upper stage of the Chang'e-5 mission rocket has fallen through the Earth's atmosphere in a safe manner and burnt up completely."
Before adding that China's aerospace endeavours are in keeping with international law, as per the Verge.
While the effects on the moon should be minor, scientists should hopefully get confirmation in the coming weeks.
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The rocket debris has been tracked for a number of years before it made impact as it was left in orbit, as per the BBC.
Hardware left in space from missions are known as 'space junk' and the European Space Agency estimates that there are around 36,500 pieces larger than 10cm.
No one officially tracks deep space junk so volunteers are left to track what they can, to better mark calculations and estimate the orbit of the left behind objects like this one.
Shola Lee