SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Stage Crashes Into Moon, Creating New Crater Near Einstein Crater

Key facts

• A SpaceX Falcon 9 upper-stage rocket crashed into the Moon, creating a new crater near the Einstein crater.
• The impact occurred at about 07:35 BST (06:35 GMT) on Wednesday at roughly 5,400 mph (8,700 km/h).
• The striking object was the empty Falcon 9 upper stage, about 14 metres across, left in space after completing its mission.
• The Falcon 9 upper stage was launched from Florida as part of a mission carrying two lunar landers.
• The upper stage had successfully sent the two lunar landers out of Earth's orbit and toward the Moon before becoming space debris.
• The collision was hard to observe because it happened on a sunlit part of the Moon and the impact flash lasted only a fraction of a second.
• A dust plume caused by the crash could stretch for as much as 100 km (62 miles) and remain visible for several minutes.
• South Korea's Danuri lunar orbiter passed close to the expected crash area shortly before the impact and may have recorded data.
• NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is expected to photograph the crash site in the coming days for before-and-after comparisons.
• Because the object's size, speed and expected impact location are known, scientists can treat the crash almost like a controlled experiment.
• The impact study can help design safer lunar landers and future Moon bases by revealing how far rocks and dust fly after a lunar impact.
• The crash may expose fresh material from below the Moon's surface, offering clues about lunar geology and history.
• The Soviet Union's Luna 2 was the first human-made object to strike the Moon in 1959, and NASA's LCROSS mission was deliberately crashed into the Moon in 2009 to search for water ice.
• The most recent confirmed accidental lunar impact before this event happened in 2022 and was believed to involve a leftover booster from a Chinese lunar mission launched in 2014.