A four-ton section of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket crashed into the Moon in an unplanned fall that carved out a new crater on the surface of Earth’s natural satellite.
The object, which had been drifting uncontrolled in space since 2025, struck the lunar surface at a speed of roughly 8,690 kilometers per hour, posing no threat to our planet.
The object that hit the Moon was the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket used in January 2025 to launch a lunar lander for the American company Firefly Aerospace.
Unlike most missions in low Earth orbit, where used rocket stages re-enter the atmosphere and burn up or fall into the ocean, this mission required extra thrust to reach the Moon. As a result, the rocket’s second stage stayed in space, uncontrollable, drifting among thousands of other objects that make up the growing problem of space debris.
The lunar impact and the expected crater
The rocket section is estimated to have hit the lunar surface at 8:35 a.m. Greek time, at a speed of about 5,400 miles per hour, or 8,690 kilometers per hour.
The impact is expected to have thrown up a large plume of dust and rock, creating a cloud of material that would have spread several kilometers above the Moon’s surface.
Scientists estimate the resulting crater is about 18 meters wide and 4 meters deep. However, the dust cloud wasn’t easy to observe from Earth, since the impact site sits near the edge of the Moon’s visible side.
Despite the use of powerful telescopes by both professional and amateur astronomers, there was no immediate confirmation of the impact.
NASA studies the data on artificial lunar impacts
NASA said it will try to image the area before and after the impact to gather data on how artificial objects behave when they strike the lunar surface.
Scientists are especially interested in analyzing the dust and material thrown up by such events, since it can help inform the design of future Moon missions.
NASA spokesperson Jimi Russell stressed that the impact poses no risk to Earth, while it could offer useful data for tracking objects in space.
How gravity nudged it toward the Moon
The rocket stage’s trajectory wasn’t originally meant to end at the Moon. Astronomers only worked out in 2026 that its path was ultimately leading to impact.
According to SpaceX, this outcome resulted from a combination of solar activity and gravitational effects that altered the object’s motion.
Julianna Scharf, who directs science mission and Dragon programs at NASA and SpaceX, said the rocket section had already run out of fuel and could no longer be controlled.
Space debris and a growing problem for lunar missions
The impact revives the debate over space debris management, as growing activity on and around the Moon creates new challenges.
Collisions of artificial objects with the Moon are rare but not unprecedented. In 2022, a piece of a Chinese rocket hit the lunar surface after completing a test mission.
In 2009, NASA deliberately crashed a rocket stage into the Moon as part of an experiment to study material thrown up from the surface.
At the same time, several missions aiming for a soft lunar landing in recent years have failed, including Russia’s Luna-25 in 2023, India’s Chandrayaan-2 in 2019, and Israel’s Beresheet the same year.
SpaceX and NASA look for ways to avoid similar incidents
As the pace of lunar missions increases, NASA and SpaceX are looking at ways to keep future rocket stages from ending up uncontrolled in orbits that could lead to collisions with the Moon.
The Falcon 9 case is another example of the challenges created by this new era of space exploration, as more companies and countries send missions beyond Earth orbit.
