South Korea space agency shares Moon images after SpaceX rocket debris crash

South Korea's space agency, KASA, has released images capturing the Moon's surface following the impact of a SpaceX rocket's debris on Wednesday. The Korean Aerospace Administration shared photos of the lunar landscape pre-impact and post-collision, stating the event occurred around 06:35 GMT. SpaceX clarified that the collision was unintentional.

KASA noted that the Falcon 9 rocket's upper stage, weighing around 4,000kg (630st), struck the Moon at approximately 5,400mph (8,700km/h). This impact created a brief, faint flash visible to larger observatories, including Seoul's space agency. However, the fleeting light would have been difficult to capture with amateur telescopes.

Matt Bothwell, an astronomer from the University of Cambridge, expressed concern over the growing space debris issue, warning that with increasing launches, it could become challenging to traverse Earth's orbit in a few decades.

The Falcon 9 rocket had been operational since last January, launching from Florida. The same booster segment from January 2025 is scheduled for its 18th mission on August 10. SpaceX's objective is to deploy 29 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit. The rocket launched in January last year carried two lunar landers, whose mission was to propel the upper stage sufficiently to send both landers out of Earth's orbit and into a trajectory towards the Moon.

The spent stage then traveled in a looping orbit, gradually influenced by Earth, Moon, and Sun's gravitational forces, eventually reaching the Moon's vicinity.