SpaceX rocket to slam into Moon at 7 times speed of sound, leave fresh crater

The rocket's upper stage is expected to strike the Moon on Wednesday. (Generative image)A discarded SpaceX rocket stage is set to crash into the Moon this week, creating a fresh crater and sending a cloud of dust into space in a rare event that scientists hope will offer valuable clues about future lunar missions and the growing problem of space debris.The rocket's upper stage, which launched two private lunar landers in January 2025, is expected to strike the Moon on Wednesday after drifting through space for more than a year. The collision is accidental and was not part of SpaceX's mission plan.Space tracking expert Bill Gray estimates the rocket will hit the Moon at around 5,400 mph (8,700 kph) near Einstein Crater on the Moon's sunlit western edge. The impact is expected to occur during the early hours of Wednesday, with the best viewing conditions likely across eastern parts of the United States and Canada, as well as much of South America.Although the impact poses no immediate danger, experts say it highlights the increasing amount of human-made debris in space."Things are getting crowded up there," said Gray, who plans to view the aftermath from New Brunswick, Canada.Space experts said the collision could have been avoided if the rocket stage had been steered into an orbit around the Sun after completing its mission.This will be only the second known accidental rocket crash on the Moon. In 2022, a discarded Chinese rocket stage struck the Moon's far side, leaving behind two craters.Unlike that incident, the latest impact will take place on the Moon's near side, releasing energy roughly equal to three tonnes of TNT.Scientists believe the flash from the impact will last for less than a second and will probably be too faint to see from Earth. However, the plume of dust and rocky debris could rise several kilometres above the lunar surface and remain visible through telescopes for several minutes."The gravity on the moon is low and there is no wind to blow the dust away," said Los Alamos National Laboratory's Benjamin Fernando, who's encouraging observations by professionals and amateurs alike."Part of the reason for our interest in this event is to figure out how much of a hazard debris impacts pose to future astronauts," he added in an email.Fernando expects the impact to leave a crater measuring about 27 metres wide and 5 metres deep. While it will be too small to spot from Earth, orbiting spacecraft should be able to photograph it.Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea's Danuri lunar orbiter are expected to capture images of the crash site before and after the impact. According to Fernando and his team, Danuri will pass within a few kilometres of the drifting rocket just two minutes before it strikes the Moon.The abandoned rocket stage is about 12 metres long and weighs roughly 4,500 kilograms. It was used to launch two commercial lunar landers. Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost later became the first privately built spacecraft to achieve a fully successful Moon landing, while Japanese company ispace's lander crashed during its descent.Scientists say well-tracked impacts such as this provide a rare opportunity to study how collisions affect the lunar surface. Unlike meteoroids, whose arrival cannot usually be predicted, the path of the SpaceX rocket has been monitored for months, allowing researchers to prepare detailed observations.The event also comes as interest in lunar exploration continues to grow. The United States and China are both planning to send astronauts to the Moon in the coming years, while SpaceX and Blue Origin are competing to build lunar landers for Nasa's Artemis programme."This impact will not be a problem," retired astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell said in an email to news agency AP. "But in a future where there are long-term bases on the moon, similar impacts would be an issue and we need not to leave rocket stages in chaotic orbits of this kind."