A rocket expected to land into the Moon in early March was built by China, not SpaceX, as originally observed by astronomy experts. A rocket will hit the lunar surface on March 4 but, contrary to what had been announced, it was built not by Elon Musk’s company, but by Beijing, experts now say. The rocket is now said to be 2014-065B, the booster for the Chang’e 5-T1, launched in 2014 as part of the Chinese space agency’s moon exploration programme. The surprise announcement was made by astronomer Bill Gray, who first identified the future impact, and admitted his mistake last weekend. “This just emphasises the problem with lack of proper tracking of these deep space objects,” tweeted astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who advocates for greater regulation of space waste. “The object had about the brightness we would expect, and had showed up at the expected time and moving in a reasonable orbit,” he wrote in the post. “In hindsight, I should have noticed some odd things” about its orbit, he added. Late last month, NASA said it would attempt to monitor the crater that will be formed by the explosion of this object, thanks to its probe that orbits around the Moon, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The agency called the event an “exciting research opportunity”. 正如天文专家最初观察到的那样，预计将于 3 月初登陆月球的火箭是由中国而非 SpaceX 建造的。 专家现在说，一枚火箭将于 3 月 4 日撞击月球表面，但与之前宣布的相反，它不是由埃隆马斯克的公司建造的，而是由北京建造的。 该火箭现在据说是 2014-065B，是嫦娥 5-T1 的助推器，于 2014 年作为中国航天局探月计划的一部分发射。 天文学家比尔格雷宣布了这一意外消息，他首先确定了未来的影响，并在上周末承认了自己的错误。 “这只是强调了缺乏对这些深空物体进行适当跟踪的问题，”天文学家乔纳森麦克道尔在推特上说，他主张加强对太空垃圾的监管。 “这个物体的亮度与我们预期的差不多，并且在预期的时间出现并在合理的轨道上移动，”他在帖子中写道。 他补充说，“事后看来，我应该注意到一些关于它的轨道的奇怪事情”。 上个月末，美国宇航局表示将尝试监测该物体爆炸将形成的陨石坑，这要归功于其绕月球轨道运行的探测器——月球勘测轨道器 (LRO)。 该机构称此次活动为“令人兴奋的研究机会”。 By F. Aslam