The rocket stage could potentially cause damage to these historic spacecraft, if it lands on or near them. Yutu’s latest results show that “soil” on the far side may be stickier than the near side, and there is a higher density of small craters. Yutu-2 is still trundling along the lunar surface on its six wheels. The only other spacecraft on the Moon’s far side are the US Ranger 4 probe, which crashed in 1962, and China’s Chang-e 4 lander and Yutu-2 rover. On this airless world, the dust could travel a fair way before settling down. The crash will make a much larger crater, which will kick up chunks of rock and dust. The Falcon 9 rocket stage is significantly larger than the tiny Ebb and Flow spacecraft and is travelling faster. Observations from the controlled impact of Saturn third-stage boosters and ascent modules from the Apollo missions were particularly valuable, as timing, location and impact energy were known. Many crashes have been used to collect seismic data. The upper images show the landscape before impact and the lower images show the craters and the dark ejecta. Impacting at a speed of 6,000km per hour, they left craters 6 metres across. The NASA Ebb and Flow spacecraft were deliberately crashed into the lunar south pole in 2012, specifically to avoid any risk of damaging the Apollo landing sites. Others have been intentionally crashed at the end of their mission life. Various spacecraft have naturally decayed and fallen out of orbit, like the Japanese relay satellite Okina in 2009. This was especially controversial as the lander carried a secret cargo of dried tardigrades, tiny creatures that could be revived in the presence of water. Other crashes have been missions gone wrong, like the Israeli Beresheet lander in 2019. Tardigrades: we're now polluting the moon with near indestructible little creatures If they exploded as planned, they would have scattered 144 medallions over the lunar surface. The other two “bombs” were spheres of pentagonal medallions inscribed with the date and Soviet symbols. The USSR didn’t want the groundbreaking mission to be called a hoax. One released a cloud of sodium gas to enable the crash to be seen from Earth. The mission consisted of a rocket, a probe, and three “bombs”. The very first human-made artefact to make contact with the Moon was the Soviet Luna 2 in 1959 - an extraordinary feat, as it was only two years after the launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite. The impact will leave a new crater on the dark side of the Moon.
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