A part of a SpaceX rocket, approximately the size of a bus, has crashed into the Moon as predicted, scientists said on Wednesday, after a telescope in Chile captured evidence of a stream of debris.
The collision, which was unintentional, posed no danger to Earth and is expected to have left a lunar crater that space agencies, including NASA, still hope to document, reports AFP.
Scientists had anticipated that the Falcon 9 upper stage would strike the lunar surface at approximately 0635 GMT on Wednesday.
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) confirmed on social media on Wednesday that the impact had occurred, based on observations recorded by its Very Large Telescope (VLT).
The telescope “detected spectral lines”, which the observatory described as “chemical fingerprints” of “sodium and lithium gas in the impact plume lasting for 5–10 minutes after impact”.
“The sodium likely originated from the lunar soil, whereas the lithium could come from the rocket itself,” the ESO post said, adding that the team would provide further details following a fuller analysis.
Scientific observers had deemed the 5,400mph (8,690km/h) crash inevitable.
Astrophysicist and space analyst Jonathan McDowell said, “I have Sir Isaac Newton’s personal assurance that it did indeed hit the moon, there’s no way for it to have escaped.”
Benjamin Fernando of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico also confirmed the impact after linking to the ESO’s post.
“I can confirm that the impact did occur,” said Fernando, the lead author of a recent paper on the anticipated impact. The study estimated that the spacecraft weighed approximately 8,800 pounds (4,000 kilograms) at the time of impact, assuming all of its propellant had been spent.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea’s Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter are planning to capture images of the impact site, although it could take several days before the data becomes available.
Before the collision, NASA stressed that, “there is no danger to Earth”.
“NASA scientists are planning to collect lunar data from the event and refine techniques for tracking objects in space,” the US space agency said.
Space junk
The Falcon 9 rocket from Elon Musk’s SpaceX was launched in January 2025 carrying two lunar landers. Its booster returned to Earth, but the upper stage remained in space to push the landers onwards.
On such missions, SpaceX normally performs a manoeuvre to ensure the second stage “is safe per the appropriate rules and regulations”, said Julianna Scheiman, Director of NASA Science and Dragon Programs at SpaceX, during a news conference on Monday.
“We did that,” she said, adding that “what has happened is essentially a mixture of solar activity and gravity forces have put it on a path towards the Moon.”
Space trackers such as Bill Gray had expected it would be difficult to observe evidence of the impact from Earth.
“Admittedly, about what we expected” happened, said Gray. “But it would have been very nice to be proven wrong, and entirely possible.”
The rocket stage is one of tens of thousands of pieces of “space junk” orbiting Earth. As NASA hopes to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon, understanding space debris in lunar orbit has become increasingly important.
Although the Moon is routinely struck by meteoroids and other natural space debris, artificial collisions are relatively rare. During the 1970s, NASA deliberately crashed spacecraft into the Moon as part of the Apollo programme to collect seismic data.
Some experts have warned that the growing amount of space junk around Earth could trigger a dangerous chain reaction of collisions known as the “Kessler syndrome”.
