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(Journalist)
– In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, an object in space was zipped through Earth at a distance of about 27,000 miles. The object was given the not-so-descriptive “2020 SO” designation, and while no one is sure what it is, NASA researchers have an intriguing guess. In short, they believe these are the remnants of a failed 1966 moon mission, reports the New York Times. Specifically, it appears to be the top-stage rocket thruster for NASA’s doomed Surveyor 2 mission, according to NASA. The unmanned mission sent a lander to take photos before Apollo’s flights, but the spacecraft crashed into the moon and was destroyed. Its rocket thruster, however, had already disengaged and flew through the moon into space. Now, it looks like the booster has come home, at least temporarily.
“It was like a eureka moment when a quick check of the launch dates of lunar missions showed a match with the Surveyor 2 mission,” says Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA, per CNET. It refers to the astute research that was able to solve the puzzle. After Maui astronomers spotted the object in September, Chodas rotated its orbit in the opposite direction and concluded that it probably originated from Earth in September 1966, when Surveyor 2 was launched. Analysis of Tuesday morning’s overflight could confirm that this is indeed the mission’s rocket thruster. As for 2020 SO, it won’t be long with us. The object will escape from Earth’s orbit in March and return to orbit around the sun – at least for a while. “In 2036, he returns,” says Chodas. (China has just started an ambitious lunar mission.)
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