NASA images reveal crater left by SpaceX rocket's Moon crash

NASA unveiled new images on Tuesday showing the crater created by a SpaceX rocket impacting the Moon in late August. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the photographs between August 11 and 12, revealing a 60-foot-wide crater with a shadow less than 10 feet deep. The Falcon 9 rocket, launched in January 2025, carried a private mission that achieved a soft landing of Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost 1 lunar lander on the Moon's surface.

The Korean space agency had also released pictures of the crash site a day earlier using the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), also known as Danuri. The LRO orbits the Moon daily, taking two hours to circle the lunar body. To photograph the specific impact site, the spacecraft had to wait six days and be precisely angled so its camera pointed at the crater while passing 60 miles overhead.

Timing was crucial as any deviation of 10 seconds from the scheduled capture could result in the target drifting 10 miles off-center. The images from diverse perspectives highlighted various features such as darker streaks composed of altered surface dust and rocks from the collision, as well as brighter streaks representing recently excavated material from deeper underground.

NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies worked with the Korean team to pinpoint the impact location, which they then shared with NASA's LRO team to refine their subsequent imaging.