A four-ton fragment of a SpaceX rocket would have unintentionally hit the Moon this Wednesday, space agencies and scientists report.
Although there is no official confirmation so far that the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket has collided with the lunar surface, the collision was expected to occur around 06:35 GMT.
Data collection and scientific observation
NASA, along with its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the South Korean Pathfinder orbiter, planned to take images of the area after the impact, although receiving that data could take days.
Both the scientific community and astronomy fans were eagerly waiting to observe the plume of debris that the event would have generated.
"People with telescopes may be able to observe the ejecta plume created by the impact. It's not clear how bright it will be, and that's one of the reasons we're interested in studying this event," said Benjamin Fernando of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States, lead author of a study of the predicted impact, which has yet to be peer-reviewed.
The researchers note in their work that the event offers “the opportunity to test a protocol to locate impacts on the lunar surface for future seismic experiments, investigate the dynamics of dust and plumes generated by impacts on the Moon, and evaluate the risks posed by artificial space debris.”
The event does not represent a danger to Earth
The authors assume that the ship's fuel ran out, so it should weigh about 4,000 kg. The fragment could have crashed into the northern hemisphere of the Moon, near Einstein Crater, at a speed of about 8,690 kilometers per hour.
The event did not represent any danger to Earth, but it should leave a visible lunar crater. In a NASA statement, a spokesperson assures that the space agency "will continue to track the booster for training purposes, and will later observe the impact site for scientific purposes."
SpaceX space junk
The Falcon 9 rocket, manufactured by tycoon Elon Musk's SpaceX company, took off in January 2025 carrying two lunar landers. The main booster returned to Earth, but the upper stage remained in space.
Julianna Scheiman, director of Science Programs at NASA and the Dragon spacecraft at SpaceX, explained that the company usually ensures that the second stage “is in a safe position in accordance with the relevant rules and regulations.”
“We did that,” he declared, but “what has happened is that, essentially, a combination of solar activity and gravitational forces put it on a path to the Moon,” he justifies.
With a view to future missions on the Moon
NASA hopes to soon establish sustainable human presence missions on the Moon, making it essential to better understand space debris in lunar orbit.
The Moon is regularly hit by space debris, such as meteoroids. Artificial collisions, on the other hand, are less common. In the 1970s, NASA conducted deliberate collisions during its Apollo program to collect seismic data.
Dangers associated with space debris
This part of the rocket was just one more fragment among the thousands of pieces of space junk orbiting the Earth.
The European Space Agency (ESA) noted at the end of July that there are currently more than 46,000 pieces of space debris in orbit, weighing a total of 17,000 tons.
Some experts have warned that excessive accumulation of space debris around Earth could trigger a dangerous chain reaction of collisions known as “Kessler syndrome.”
