Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
An expert in software tracking objects in space says that a SpaceX rocket booster is "certain" to impact the moon in a few weeks, marking what is believed to be the first case of unintentional space junk hitting the Earth's moon.
Bill Gray has been tracking the Falcon 9 upper stage as part of his Project Pluto blog. The rocket booster was originally launched from Florida in February 2015 in order to send up a space weather satellite, marking the first SpaceX launch into interplanetary space.
Since then, the booster has run out of fuel and is unable to return to Earth or to get out of the gravity of the Earth-Moon system, according to meteorologist Eric Berger, who wrote about the Falcon 9's upper stage in a recent post for Ars Technica. Since then, Berger says the booster has been following a "chaotic orbit" in space.
But Gray, using his software and other available data, wrote in his Jan. 21 blog post that he predicts the booster will hit the far side of the moon on March 4. The four-ton booster is calculated to make impact at 2.58 km/second.
His calculations, as well as his prediction of March 4 as the date of impact, were confirmed in a tweet by Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
There are some small uncertainties that could impact the orbit of the booster, including light from the sun "pushing" the object and altering its course minutely. These changes may impact exactly where the booster lands, which Gray is continuing to track and predict, but he says he is "100 per cent certain" that it will make an impact somewhere on the moon.
When it comes to whether people should be worried about the impact, Gray says there is "zero concern," adding that the moon is hit with larger natural space objects like asteroids at even faster speeds "fairly routinely." But when it comes to man-made objects and space junk, Gray says this is the first unintentional case of impact of which he is aware.
While this event will likely be unobservable from Earth, Gray says there is a possibility that there could be something to learn about the moon because of this impact.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and India's Chandrayaan-2 are expected to eventually pass over the site of the booster's hit. If the exact location on the moon can be determined, Gray says the lunar orbiters could "see a very fresh impact crater" and possible "ejecta" -- material expelled from under the surface of the moon from the force of the impact.
From these observations, researchers could learn more about the geological makeup of the moon.
"I am rooting for a lunar impact," Gray wrote.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
The CFL suspended Toronto Argonauts quarterback Chad Kelly for at least nine regular-season games Tuesday following its investigation into a lawsuit filed by a former strength-and-conditioning coach against both the player and club.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.