Piece of SpaceX rocket believed to have crashed into the moon
NASA says the 4-metric-ton stage could leave a 60-foot crater and a dust plume, offering scientists a rare chance to study lunar impacts.
- On Wednesday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage struck the Moon's western limb near Einstein Crater at about 5,400 mph, likely creating a 60-foot-wide crater and ejecting lunar dust and rock.
- SpaceX director of NASA science Julianna Scheiman explained that solar activity and gravity forces pushed the uncontrolled rocket stage toward the Moon after its January 2025 launch required extra thrust.
- Astronomy software creator Bill Gray noted the impact highlights "a certain carelessness about how leftover space hardware is disposed of," though the collision poses no threat to Earth.
- NASA plans to collect data from the impact to study lunar geology and debris behavior, utilizing observations similar to intentional crashes conducted in the 1970s and 2009 to improve future exploration models.
- To protect the Artemis program's planned lunar base, NASA and SpaceX are discussing ways to prevent future lunar impacts as routine astronaut missions begin later this decade.
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283 Articles
Researchers at the Very Large Telescope in Chile have detected the impact of the huge SpaceX rocket part on the moon. They observed signals from the cloud created during the crash. A photo is still missing.
The Falcon 9 had transported two lunar landing gears into space last year. Now it was confirmed that a four-ton portion of the rocket hit the moon.
A piece of debris flew toward the moon for over a year and a half after a failed launch. A four-ton piece of debris from a spent SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which had been in space since last year, crashed uncontrollably into the moon's surface at high speed, RBC-Ukraine reported, citing The Guardian. The collision posed no danger to Earth, but it was expected to create a new crater on the moon's surface. Details of the collision and crater: The obj…
Welp, Nobody Saw SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket Crash Into the Moon
Although no one captured a direct image of the impact, scientists have detected signals confirming the rocket hit the lunar surface. Orbiters could provide the first images of the crash site in the coming days.
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