SpaceX rocket debris leaves new crater on Moon
NASA has released a series of images showing a new crater on the Moon formed after part of a SpaceX rocket struck the lunar surface, Qazinform News Agency reports, citing the NASA official website.
The crater formed on August 5, when the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket crashed into the Moon after drifting in space for more than a year following the January 2025 launch of Firefly’s Blue Ghost 1 mission.
The images were captured between August 11 and 12 by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
To capture the images, engineers tilted the spacecraft so its cameras would point toward the crater as LRO passed about 60 miles (97 kilometers) above the Moon at roughly 1 mile per second.
The orbiter travels from pole to pole every two hours as the Moon rotates beneath it. Because the spacecraft can photograph a specific location only when it comes into view, it took six days for the impact site to enter LRO’s field of view.
Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that NASA and SpaceX had been tracking a Falcon 9 upper stage, expecting it to impact the Moon on Wednesday, August 5, near the Einstein and Bell craters.