SpaceX rocket stage to crash into Moon, giving scientists a rare debris test
A drifting SpaceX rocket stage is set to strike the Moon near Einstein Crater. The accidental impact offers a rare debris study as lunar traffic and safety worries grow.
A drifting SpaceX rocket upper stage is set to crash into the moon on Wednesday in an unintended impact that scientists and skywatchers are keen to observe. Experts expect it to hit near Einstein Crater on the moon's sunlit western limb, carving out a crater and throwing up dust and rubble.
While researchers are not overly worried about this single piece of space junk, they say the incident shows the growing problem of objects building up in space as activity around the moon increases. It will be the second known accidental crash of a dead rocket into the moon.
Space tracking expert Bill Gray has predicted an impact speed of 5,400 mph, or 8,700 kph, about seven times the speed of sound. He said, "Things are getting crowded up there," and plans to watch the aftermath from New Brunswick in Canada. Because the impact will happen in the early hours, the best views are expected from the eastern parts of the US and Canada, and much of South America.
Experts said SpaceX never meant for the rocket stage to hit the moon and that the crash might have been avoided if it had been pushed into orbit around the sun. The impact is expected to release energy equal to about three tons of TNT. Scientists said the flash from the strike, lasting less than a second, will probably be too faint to see, but material thrown up by the impact could rise several miles into space and remain visible through telescopes for tens of minutes.
"The gravity on the moon is low and there is no wind to blow the dust away," said Benjamin Fernando of Los Alamos National Laboratory, who is urging both professional and amateur observers to watch the event. In an email, he added, "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." Fernando expects a crater nearly 90 feet across and 16 feet deep, or 27 metres across and 5 metres deep, which would be too small to see from Earth but visible to spacecraft.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea's Danuri lunar orbiter will take before-and-after images of the crash site. According to Fernando and his team, Danuri will pass within a mile or two, or a few kilometres, of the SpaceX rocket only two minutes before impact.
The abandoned rocket segment is about 40 feet, or 12 metres, long and weighs around 10,000 pounds, or 4,500 kilograms. It launched two private lunar landers on January 15, 2025. One of them, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, became the first private spacecraft to achieve a fully successful landing on the moon. The other, a lander from Japan-based ispace, crashed.
Scientists said such a strike offers a rare chance to study a well-tracked impact by a human-made object, unlike meteoroids and other natural objects that usually hit the moon without warning. During the Apollo era, NASA deliberately crashed rocket sections and lunar modules into the moon for seismic studies. In 2009, NASA also intentionally sent its LCROSS spacecraft and upper stage into the lunar south pole region in search of ice.
This will be the second known accidental rocket crash on the moon after a Chinese rocket segment left two craters on the lunar far side in 2022. With the US and China both aiming to land astronauts on the moon in the next few years, and companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin competing to provide NASA's future lunar lander, scientists say better debris tracking and traffic control will be needed. Retired astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell said in an email, "This impact will not be a problem. 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."
In sum, the planned observations of this accidental lunar impact could help scientists learn more about debris strikes at a time when missions to the moon are increasing, even as the episode underlines the need for tighter control of space junk.
With PTI Inputs
A drifting SpaceX rocket upper stage is set to crash into the moon on Wednesday in an unintended impact that scientists and skywatchers are keen to observe. Experts expect it to hit near Einstein Crater on the moon's sunlit western limb, carving out a crater and throwing up dust and rubble.
While researchers are not overly worried about this single piece of space junk, they say the incident shows the growing problem of objects building up in space as activity around the moon increases. It will be the second known accidental crash of a dead rocket into the moon.
Space tracking expert Bill Gray has predicted an impact speed of 5,400 mph, or 8,700 kph, about seven times the speed of sound. He said, "Things are getting crowded up there," and plans to watch the aftermath from New Brunswick in Canada. Because the impact will happen in the early hours, the best views are expected from the eastern parts of the US and Canada, and much of South America.
Experts said SpaceX never meant for the rocket stage to hit the moon and that the crash might have been avoided if it had been pushed into orbit around the sun. The impact is expected to release energy equal to about three tons of TNT. Scientists said the flash from the strike, lasting less than a second, will probably be too faint to see, but material thrown up by the impact could rise several miles into space and remain visible through telescopes for tens of minutes.
"The gravity on the moon is low and there is no wind to blow the dust away," said Benjamin Fernando of Los Alamos National Laboratory, who is urging both professional and amateur observers to watch the event. In an email, he added, "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." Fernando expects a crater nearly 90 feet across and 16 feet deep, or 27 metres across and 5 metres deep, which would be too small to see from Earth but visible to spacecraft.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea's Danuri lunar orbiter will take before-and-after images of the crash site. According to Fernando and his team, Danuri will pass within a mile or two, or a few kilometres, of the SpaceX rocket only two minutes before impact.
The abandoned rocket segment is about 40 feet, or 12 metres, long and weighs around 10,000 pounds, or 4,500 kilograms. It launched two private lunar landers on January 15, 2025. One of them, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, became the first private spacecraft to achieve a fully successful landing on the moon. The other, a lander from Japan-based ispace, crashed.
Scientists said such a strike offers a rare chance to study a well-tracked impact by a human-made object, unlike meteoroids and other natural objects that usually hit the moon without warning. During the Apollo era, NASA deliberately crashed rocket sections and lunar modules into the moon for seismic studies. In 2009, NASA also intentionally sent its LCROSS spacecraft and upper stage into the lunar south pole region in search of ice.
This will be the second known accidental rocket crash on the moon after a Chinese rocket segment left two craters on the lunar far side in 2022. With the US and China both aiming to land astronauts on the moon in the next few years, and companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin competing to provide NASA's future lunar lander, scientists say better debris tracking and traffic control will be needed. Retired astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell said in an email, "This impact will not be a problem. 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."
In sum, the planned observations of this accidental lunar impact could help scientists learn more about debris strikes at a time when missions to the moon are increasing, even as the episode underlines the need for tighter control of space junk.
With PTI Inputs
A drifting SpaceX rocket upper stage is set to crash into the moon on Wednesday in an unintended impact that scientists and skywatchers are keen to observe. Experts expect it to hit near Einstein Crater on the moon's sunlit western limb, carving out a crater and throwing up dust and rubble.
While researchers are not overly worried about this single piece of space junk, they say the incident shows the growing problem of objects building up in space as activity around the moon increases. It will be the second known accidental crash of a dead rocket into the moon.
Space tracking expert Bill Gray has predicted an impact speed of 5,400 mph, or 8,700 kph, about seven times the speed of sound. He said, "Things are getting crowded up there," and plans to watch the aftermath from New Brunswick in Canada. Because the impact will happen in the early hours, the best views are expected from the eastern parts of the US and Canada, and much of South America.
Experts said SpaceX never meant for the rocket stage to hit the moon and that the crash might have been avoided if it had been pushed into orbit around the sun. The impact is expected to release energy equal to about three tons of TNT. Scientists said the flash from the strike, lasting less than a second, will probably be too faint to see, but material thrown up by the impact could rise several miles into space and remain visible through telescopes for tens of minutes.
"The gravity on the moon is low and there is no wind to blow the dust away," said Benjamin Fernando of Los Alamos National Laboratory, who is urging both professional and amateur observers to watch the event. In an email, he added, "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." Fernando expects a crater nearly 90 feet across and 16 feet deep, or 27 metres across and 5 metres deep, which would be too small to see from Earth but visible to spacecraft.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea's Danuri lunar orbiter will take before-and-after images of the crash site. According to Fernando and his team, Danuri will pass within a mile or two, or a few kilometres, of the SpaceX rocket only two minutes before impact.
The abandoned rocket segment is about 40 feet, or 12 metres, long and weighs around 10,000 pounds, or 4,500 kilograms. It launched two private lunar landers on January 15, 2025. One of them, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, became the first private spacecraft to achieve a fully successful landing on the moon. The other, a lander from Japan-based ispace, crashed.
Scientists said such a strike offers a rare chance to study a well-tracked impact by a human-made object, unlike meteoroids and other natural objects that usually hit the moon without warning. During the Apollo era, NASA deliberately crashed rocket sections and lunar modules into the moon for seismic studies. In 2009, NASA also intentionally sent its LCROSS spacecraft and upper stage into the lunar south pole region in search of ice.
This will be the second known accidental rocket crash on the moon after a Chinese rocket segment left two craters on the lunar far side in 2022. With the US and China both aiming to land astronauts on the moon in the next few years, and companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin competing to provide NASA's future lunar lander, scientists say better debris tracking and traffic control will be needed. Retired astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell said in an email, "This impact will not be a problem. 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."
In sum, the planned observations of this accidental lunar impact could help scientists learn more about debris strikes at a time when missions to the moon are increasing, even as the episode underlines the need for tighter control of space junk.
With PTI Inputs
