SPACE: HOW CAN WE SOLVE THE SPACE JUNK PROBLEM?

Recent news of an out-of-control rocket crashing into the Moon sounds dramatic, but it's the millions of pieces of smaller debris that present the real danger, according to a UK expert

In January, Elon Musk's SpaceX once again made headline news: a large section of rocket booster belonging to the spaceflight company was found to be on course to smash into the Moon.

The errant chunk of space junk, which has been careering around the Earth for the last seven years, was spotted by American astronomer Bill Gray. He identified it as the upper section of a Falcon 9 rocket, launched from Florida in 2015, which had run out of fuel and become trapped in an ‘chaotic orbit. Many internet pundits and social media users were incensed.

Then shortly after Gray's announcement, a group of students based at the University of Arizona's Space Domain Awareness lab eventually identified the offending piece of defunct space hardware as belonging to a Chang'e 5-T1 rocket launched in 2014 by the Chinese space agency.

However, a spokesperson from the Chinese foreign ministry has since told reporters that this cannot be the case as the Chang'e 5-T1 rocket in question safely entered the Earth's atmosphere and burned up.

At the time of writing, calculations showed that the rocket would crash onto the surface of the Moon on 4 March. But should we be worried about the potential damage it could cause? Not according to Prof Don Pollacco, director of the University of Warwick's newly formed Centre for Space Domain Awareness.

"It's no big deal," he said. "The Moon has actually been a handy dump for things like the Apollo spacecraft. Rather than let them float around, most of the first and second stages were crashed into the Moon."

Not only is it no big deal, for those who study objects in Earth orbit it comes as little surprise.