SpaceX rocket falsely accused of being on course to hit the moon

It has been more than a month since astrophysicists have been predicting that a rocket is on a collision course with the moon. Earlier, it was thought to be SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster, but recent reports have claimed that it may be a different rocket.

A number of reports had earlier claimed that Falcon 9 booster, a rocket launched by Elon Musk-owned SpaceX seven years ago, was set to hit the moon. He had even received much flak for failing to dispose of the debris post launch.

Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at Harvard University, had earlier said that the collision will not be massive and that it "will not be a big deal."

A Space.com report had claimed that the rocket in question is probably a Chinese rocket stage that was launched into space in 2014. It stated that a piece of China's Chang'e 5-T1 is set to hit the moon on March 4 at around 12:25 UTC.

However, China has rejected all such reports stating that it was not possible since the Chang'e 5-T1 upper stage had burned up completely in Earth's atmosphere. Astronomer Bill Gray, who had made both the predictions, has said that he does not buy China's claims.

"There really is no good reason at this point to think the object is anything other than the Chang'e 5-T1 booster. Anybody claiming otherwise has a pretty large hill of evidence to overcome," he told Inside Outer Space.

Gray, who also manages the Project Pluto software used to track near-Earth objects, says that there is a need to do a better job at tracking such objects as that would have prevented the issue.

"First step would be to release 'last known positions and velocities' for objects going into high Earth orbits or solar or lunar orbits. That would have avoided the initial identification issue, where I thought this was the DSCOVR upper stage," he added.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) will also be monitoring the impact of the collision. It, however, added that the assessment will take some time.

"Following the impact, the mission can use its cameras to identify the impact site, comparing older images to images taken after the impact. The search for the impact crater will be challenging and might take weeks to months," NASA officials said in a statement.