SpaceX rocket about to crash into the moon in unintentional collision
Piece of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket weighing four tonnes will hit the lunar surface on Wednesday at 5,400 miles per hour A four-tonne piece of a SpaceX rocket that has been floating in space since last year is set to unintentionally crash into the moon at high speed on Wednesday, a collision that poses no danger to Earth but will leave behind a new lunar crater and afford an opportunity for further…
A four-tonne piece of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set to crash into the moon's surface on Wednesday at 5,400 miles per hour. The object, which is the second stage of the rocket, has been floating in space since last year and will leave behind a new lunar crater. According to TechRadar, the impact will occur near the Einstein Crater.
The collision, which was predicted almost a year ago, poses no danger to Earth but will provide an opportunity for further scientific research. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea's Danuri will take before-and-after images of the area where the impact is expected to occur, as reported by TechRadar. The impact is expected to release roughly the energy equivalent of three tons of TNT.
The rocket stage, which is about the size of a school bus, was left over from the January 2025 launch of Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost and ispace's Hakuto-R lunar missions. According to Live Science and Space.com, the impact will occur at about 2:35 a.m. EDT on August 5, and while the collision itself is unlikely to be visible from Earth, observers may have a chance to spot an ejecta plume rising above the lunar surface.
Brief written by urgent.news from Guardian Science, Fortune, TechRadar, Live Science, Space.com — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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