RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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The crash site on the moon
KASA
The first images of the impact crater caused by an out-of-control SpaceX craft have emerged. Part of a SpaceX rocket crashed into the moon at about 8700 kilometres per hour on 5 August.
The images were taken by the Danuri lunar orbiter, operated by the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA). They show both before and after the impact and reveal that the crash did indeed leave a crater.
The craft in question was the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched in January last year, carrying the Hakuto-R spacecraft from commercial company ispace – which, ironically, also crashed into the moon during an unsuccessful landing attempt.
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Astronomers around the world had trained their telescopes on the spot in the hope of observing the impact, but its tiny size made it virtually impossible for amateur observers to make out.
KASA revealed the images in a post on X and warned that videos being shared on social media purporting to show footage of the impact are fake.
Images taken by the Danuri orbiter before and after the SpaceX craft crashed
KASA
It is thought that the almost 14-metre-long, 4000-kilogram Falcon upper stage impacted the moon at 5.35am BST on 5 August, near to Einstein crater – named for physicist Albert Einstein – which is towards the edge of the visible moon from Earth.
NASA had predicted prior to impact that the crash would create a crater 18 metres wide and 4 metres deep. Further images from a NASA lunar orbiter will provide more detail of the site in the coming days and weeks.
David Rothery at the Open University, UK, says the images make it hard to be certain about the nature of the crater, but that higher-quality ones should emerge in time.
“The moon’s got about 100 million natural craters in that size range, so in the scheme of things, this is nothing,” he says. “You’ll get several a decade of this kind of size forming naturally.”
Unlike the Apollo lander sites, which have been photographed in great detail, the SpaceX impact site may not show any visible evidence of the craft because of its high impact speed, says Rothery. But the ejected regolith will probably be lighter in colour than the surrounding surface, at least until it is weathered by sunlight over tens of millions of years.
Some had suggested in the wake of the impact that the new crater be named after SpaceX owner Elon Musk, but the suggestion has been shot down by astronomers.
Rita Schulz , chair of the International Astronomical Union Working Group on Planetary System Nomenclature, which oversees the naming of celestial objects and features, says it wouldn’t be in line with rules on such matters.
“Formal feature naming is restricted to natural geological formations that serve a long-term cartographic and scientific reference purpose for the global community,” she says. “Spacecraft impact sites are frequently given informal or working nicknames by mission teams. The [SpaceX] mission team can give it any nickname they like, but it will not become an official name.”
Furthermore, if a crater is named to commemorate a person, this person has to have been deceased for at least three years, says Schulz, while Musk is still alive.
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