Context

• Recently, NASA has confirmed that the Near-Earth Object called 2020 SO is the rocket booster that helped lift the space agency’s Surveyor spacecraft toward the Moon in 1966.

About Surveyor-2 Spacecraft

• The Surveyor-2 spacecraft was supposed to make a soft landing on the Moon’s surface in September 1966, during which time one of the three thrusters failed to ignite.
• As a result of this the spacecraft started spinning and crashed on the surface.
• The aim of the mission was to reconnoiter the lunar surface ahead of the Apollo missions that led to the first lunar landing in 1969.
• While the spacecraft crashed into the Moon’s surface, the rocket booster disappeared into an unknown orbit around the Sun.

Rocket booster

• Astronomers track asteroids using telescope to determine if there are potentially hazardous asteroids that pose a threat to the planet.
• Therefore, it is also important for them to be able to distinguish between natural and artificial objects that orbit around the Sun.
• The rocket booster has come “somewhat close” to the Earth in the past few decades.
• One approach to the Earth in late 1966 was so close that the object was thought to have originated from Earth.
• In September, the NASA-funded telescope detected it.

Source: Indian Express