Chandrayaan-1 Found ?

[LordFerret]

It appears that NASA, using a new radar technique, has found the lost Chandrayaan-1 probe. I'm kind of surprised the probe is still orbiting!

https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-radar-technique-lost-lunar.html

[Streetwind]

Neat technique. That should hopefully help with tracking space debris around Earth too.

[Gaarst]

12 hours ago, LordFerret said:

I'm kind of surprised the probe is still orbiting!

There's not atmosphere on the Moon, I don't see a reason for its orbit to decay.

[Streetwind]

Many low lunar orbits are actually quite unstable. Differences in the local gravitational field, caused by differences in surface composition, perturbs the orbits above it.

Still, its been a mere seven years. That's a short period of time on the grand scale of things.

[LordFerret]

1 hour ago, Gaarst said:

There's not atmosphere on the Moon, I don't see a reason for its orbit to decay.

As @Streetwindabove says, and as mentioned in the article ("... the moon is riddled with mascons (regions with higher-than-average gravitational pull) ...").

I'm sure soon enough we'll be needing to monitor and track all the crap orbiting the moon, especially if Musk's endeavor becomes reality. Can't have tourists slamming into old still-orbiting junk satellites.