A SpaceX rocket stage heads for the Moon

• Space A SpaceX satellite disintegrates over Spain in a spectacular fireball

• Falcon 9 SpaceX's new cargo capsule successfully docks with the International Space Station

The second stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched in 2015 is currently on track to impact the Moon, which

.

It's the forecast of

, who writes the widely used Project Pluto

for tracking near-Earth objects, asteroids, minor planets, and comets.

SpaceX launched its first deep space mission

.

After the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket completed a long burn to reach a transfer orbit, NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory began its journey to a Sun-Earth LaGrange point more than a million kilometers from Earth. , reports

.

At the time, the Falcon 9 rocket's second stage was high enough that it didn't have

to return to Earth's atmosphere.

It also lacked the energy to escape the gravity of the Earth-Moon system, so it has been following a somewhat chaotic orbit since February 2015.

Earlier this month, Gray called on amateur and professional astronomers to make

of the artifact.

With this new data, Gray now believes that the Falcon 9 upper stage is very likely to impact the far side of the Moon, near the equator, on March 4.

Since the object is circling,

the effects of sunlight "pushing" on the rocket stage and thus causing slight alterations in its orbit.

"These unpredictable effects are very small," Gray writes.

But they will accumulate between now and March 4, and more observations are needed to refine the precise time and location of the impact.

This information will allow satellites currently orbiting the Moon, including

and India's Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft, to collect observations on the impact crater.

With the LCROSS mission, NASA deliberately impacted the upper stage of a spent rocket on the Moon in 2009 for this purpose.

Although scientists are more interested in understanding the presence of ice at the lunar poles, being able to observe subsurface material ejected by the impact of the Falcon 9 rocket could still provide some valuable data.

The dry mass of the Falcon 9 second stage weighs about four metric tons and should impact the Moon

This is likely the first time a piece of space

hit the Moon

.

Typically, during interplanetary missions, a rocket's upper stage is sent into a heliocentric orbit, keeping it away from Earth and its Moon.

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