Contrary to previous reports, it is not Elon Musk's SpaceX but rather a piece of a rocket launched by China's space agency that is likely responsible for creating a crater on the lunar surface. Bill Gray, developer of Project Pluto, recently announced that the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was on a trajectory that would intersect with the moon's path. This rocket had launched the Deep Space Climate Observatory for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in February 2015. Gray had been monitoring this rocket part for years, and in January it passed within 6,000 miles of the moon's surface, leading to speculation that it might crash on a subsequent orbit. Reports from amateur astronomers who witnessed the object passing by Earth once again confirmed the anticipated collision within the Hertzsprung crater. However, an email received on Saturday from Jon Giorgini, an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, provided new information. Giorgini oversees Horizons, an online database that can provide locations and orbits for nearly 1.2 million objects in the solar system, including approximately 200 spacecraft. After a user of Horizons inquired about the object's connection to the DSCOVR rocket, Giorgini decided to investigate further. He discovered that the orbit did not match the path that DSCOVR followed and reached out to Gray. Gray recalled his initial reaction was confidence in his work. However, he went through his emails to refresh his memory on when the object was first seen in March 2015, approximately a month after DSCOVR's launch. Typically, newly spotted objects in the sky are asteroids, and this object was also assumed to be one. It was named WE0913A. It was discovered that WE0913A was orbiting Earth instead of the sun, suggesting it originated from Earth. Gray suggested it could be part of the rocket that launched DSCOVR, and further data confirmed this theory when WE0913A passed the moon two days after DSCOVR's launch. Gray now realizes his mistake in assuming DSCOVR was headed towards the moon for a gravity-assist maneuver, as Giorgini clarified that DSCOVR was actually launched on a direct path not involving the moon. Gray admitted that he regretted not reviewing the information before making his announcement in January. Once Jon Giorgini brought it to his attention, he realized that he had made a mistake. SpaceX did not confirm or deny that WE0913A was their rocket stage, but it is likely that they were not tracking it. Typically, the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket is disposed of by burning up in the atmosphere, but in this instance, the rocket needed all its fuel to deliver DSCOVR to its intended location. However, the second stage, which was not powered or controlled, was in an orbit that was not likely to pose a threat to any satellites, and it is probable that people did not monitor its whereabouts. Gray expressed a desire for transparency from those responsible for launching boosters into high orbits, suggesting that it would be helpful if they publicly disclosed information about their payloads and trajectories. Gray then began investigating other recent launches, specifically those directed towards the moon, in an effort to identify the unidentified object in orbit. The top contender for the mission was a Long March 3C rocket that launched China's Chang'e-5 T1 spacecraft on October 23, 2014. The spacecraft orbited the moon before returning to Earth, releasing a return capsule that landed in Mongolia. This test was a precursor to the successful Chang'e-5 mission in 2020, which collected moon rocks and dust for study on Earth. A computer simulation of WE0913A's orbit in the past indicated that it would have had a close encounter with the moon on October 28, just five days after the Chinese launch. Additionally, orbital data from a cubesat attached to the Long March rocket closely matched WE0913A. "It's a case that could likely result in a conviction if taken to a jury," said Christophe Demeautis, an amateur astronomer in northeast France, regarding the prediction of when an object will strike the moon. The impact is expected to occur at around 7:26 am Eastern time, but it will not be visible from Earth's telescopes and satellites due to it happening on the far side of the moon. The search for the Falcon 9 part continues as efforts are made to locate the DSCOVR second stage. It is most likely that the object ended up circling the sun instead of the Earth, meaning it may still be in space and currently out of sight. This situation has occurred before, as seen in 2020 when a mystery object was identified as part of a rocket from NASA's Surveyor missions to the moon in 1966.