RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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NASA has finally revealed its first images of the crater made by a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage that smashed into the moon on Aug. 5.
The images, captured by the space agency's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) between Aug. 11 and 12, show a 60-foot-wide (18 meters) crater surrounded by streaks of lunar rock thrown up by the rocket's impact.
The new crater was carved into the lunar surface by the upper stage of one of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets, which launched on Jan. 15, 2025 to deliver a pair of lunar landers to the moon. Unlike Falcon 9's lower stage, which can return to Earth to be reused, the rocket's upper stage is discarded in orbit. In this case, after drifting around our planet for nearly a year, a combination of solar radiation and the moon's gravitational pull nudged the 4.4-ton (4 metric tons) rocket section away from Earth and toward our rocky satellite, according to Live Science's sister site Space.com .
Finding the impact site was a challenge that required global cooperation between hobbyists and experts, NASA said in a statement on Tuesday (Aug. 18). The crash occurred near Einstein crater on the northwestern limb of the moon, which was facing the sun at the time of the collision. As a result, the initial flare from the crash was not visible from Earth.
The speed of the collision further complicated the hunt: The rocket stage hit the surface at an estimated 5,400 mph (8,700 km/h). While this may sound fast, it's still a lot slower than the average speed of meteoroids that crash into the moon, which NASA say is anywhere between 45,000 mph (72,420 km/h) and 160,000 mph (257,495 km/h). As a result, the impact was relatively small and therefore even harder to see from Earth.
The box in the center of the image highlights two small craters; the lower crater formed on August 5th when a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage smashed into the moon. (Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Intuitive Machines)
The crash was first predicted by independent astronomer Bill Gray in May. According to NASA, the agency's Center for Near Earth Object Studies then refined these initial predictions to more precisely estimate the location of the impact site.
The first spacecraft to come within range of the site was South Korea's Danuri lunar orbiter , which revealed the first images of the small, blackened crater on Aug. 6. NASA's LRO photographed the same spot six days later.
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"The orbiter circles the Moon from pole to pole every two hours, while the Moon slowly rotates underneath it," the space agency said in the statement. "To photograph a specific spot, the spacecraft must wait until that location turns into view."
Using its Narrow-Angle Camera, the LRO was able to snap the crater from several different viewing angles, which enabled scientists to estimate the crater's size as roughly 60 feet wide (18 m) and less than 10 feet (3 m) deep.
The images also show light and dark streaks radiating from the crater, which NASA says are lines of dust and rocks thrown up from the lunar surface during the impact. The darker streaks are made by weathered material from near the surface, while the lighter streaks near the rim are made up of older rocks from deeper underground.
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