In case you missed it, it emerged earlier this week that a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was either about to, or had already, unintentionally crashed into the moon. While the collision wasn’t thought to be particularly large, the four-ton rocket reportedly slammed into the moon’s surface at a speed of 5,400mph, and now the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) has shared what it claims are the first before and after images.
The Republic of Korea’s lunar orbiter Danuri managed to capture what a lot of the world’s astronomers will have missed, with the second image clearly showing the crater left by the Falcon 9’s upper stage after it hit in the early hours of August 5. NASA estimated that the crater would be around 60 feet wide and 12 feet deep, and said that while meteoroids hitting the moon is a daily occurrence, collisions with human-made objects are far more rare.
2022년 8월 5일 달로 향했던 대한민국 달 궤도선 다누리,
2026년 8월 5일 스페이스X 팰컨9 발사체 상단부의 달 표면 충돌 전·후 포착!※ 현재 온라인에서 확산 중인 충돌 영상은 다누리가 촬영한 영상이 아니며, 다누리는 충돌 전·후 관측 이미지를 확보했습니다.#우주항공청 #KASA #다누리 pic.twitter.com/iZZ0OTn3yl
— 우주항공청 KASA (@with_KASA) August 6, 2026
The Falcon 9 has been in orbit since January 2025, and carried two lunar landers to orbit on the Blue Ghost mission. The reusable booster (first stage) successfully returned to earth last year, but the rocket remained in space to ensure the landers reached their intended destination.
“For most of our missions, we plan a controlled deorbit of the Falcon second stage so it safely reenters over the ocean,” Elon Musk’s SpaceX wrote in a post on X after the crash had taken place. “For higher energy missions like those to a lunar transfer orbit, nearly all performance on the vehicle is devoted to successfully placing the payload in the intended orbit, and a controlled disposal maneuver is not always possible.”
The impact of the collision poses no danger to Earth, but increasing quantities of space debris are of concern to some astronomers. “It could feasibly be within a few decades that it’s actually quite hard to get past Earth’s orbit because space is so crowded,” astronomer Matt Bothwell of the University of Cambridge told the BBC.
NASA said that disturbances to the moon can give scientists “valuable insight” as it allows them to study how ejecta plumes behave, which in turn reveals more about the geology of the moon and can inform future space missions.
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