The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has released high-resolution images capturing the crater formed on the Moon following the impact of a spent SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage.
According to NASA, the upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket struck the lunar surface on August 5, 2026, at an estimated speed of 8,700 kilometers per hour. Originally launched in January 2025 as part of a mission delivering two private lunar landers and a small rover, the hardware spent over a year tumbling through space before its fatal collision course with the Moon.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured before-and-after imagery of the impact site on August 11 and 12. Scientists analyzing the data report that the resulting crater measures approximately 60 feet across and under 10 feet deep. The imagery reveals distinctive bright and dark ejecta rays surrounding the fresh impact crater, offering researchers valuable observational data on unintentional high-velocity impacts on the lunar surface.
