NASA images expose crater from Falcon 9 crash

NASA has released detailed images of a new crater carved into the Moon after a discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage struck the lunar surface on 5 August, giving scientists an unusually precise view of the effects of a large human-made object hitting another world.

The crater measures about 60 feet, or 18 metres, across and is less than 10 feet deep. Images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter show bright and dark streaks radiating from the impact site, revealing how material from different depths was thrown across the surrounding terrain.

The Falcon 9 stage hit the Moon after spending more than a year in a highly elliptical orbit following its launch on 15 January 2025. The rocket had carried Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 and ispace’s Resilience lunar lander towards the Moon. Blue Ghost separated from the launch vehicle after reaching its planned Earth orbit and later completed a successful lunar landing at Mare Crisium.

The spent upper stage, designated 2025-010D, remained in space after the mission. Solar activity and complex gravitational forces involving Earth and the Moon gradually altered its trajectory. Tracking teams later determined that it was heading towards the lunar surface near the Einstein and Bell crater region. The impact occurred at roughly 2.4 kilometres per second, equivalent to about 5,400 miles per hour.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed the site between 11 and 12 August. Engineers had to tilt the spacecraft during successive passes about 60 miles above the Moon so its Narrow-Angle Camera could capture the correct location. The orbiter travels at about one mile per second and circles the Moon from pole to pole approximately every two hours, making precise timing essential. A camera exposure taken only seconds too early or late could have missed the target by several miles.

The resulting photographs show striking differences in the material surrounding the crater. Darker streaks contain surface dust and rocks that have been altered over long periods by solar wind, cosmic radiation and countless micrometeorite impacts. The collision excavated some of this weathered material from around 1.5 feet below the surface.

Brighter rays close to the crater came from material buried deeper underground and exposed to space for far less time. The contrast allows planetary scientists to distinguish layers of lunar soil without drilling into the surface. LRO’s Narrow-Angle Camera can identify features as small as about three feet, enabling researchers to examine the crater rim, ejecta patterns and surrounding terrain in considerable detail.

The impact site was first narrowed down through international tracking efforts involving professional researchers and independent astronomers. NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies refined the predicted trajectory and provided coordinates to the Republic of Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter team. Danuri photographed the crater only hours after the collision and found the prediction was accurate to about 0.6 miles.

Those coordinates were then passed back to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter team, helping engineers prepare higher-resolution observations. Comparison with images taken before the crash placed the crater centre at 19.4759 degrees north and 266.7138 degrees east, at an elevation of 511 metres.

Scientists had anticipated a much larger crater before the collision. Modelling published ahead of the event suggested the approximately four-tonne rocket stage might create a feature around 40 metres across. The actual crater, at roughly 18 metres, gives researchers a valuable benchmark for improving simulations of low-velocity impacts involving artificial objects.

The event is also attracting attention because traffic around the Moon is expanding rapidly. Government agencies and private companies are sending increasing numbers of landers, orbiters and supporting spacecraft into cislunar space. Researchers have warned that discarded stages and defunct spacecraft could become an operational hazard as permanent equipment, scientific instruments and eventually crewed facilities spread across the lunar surface.

The Falcon 9 collision offered an unusual controlled-data opportunity because the impacting object’s origin, approximate mass, trajectory and speed were known beforehand. Researchers can now compare those parameters with the crater and ejecta actually produced, helping refine models that are usually built from impacts involving natural meteoroids whose properties are far less certain.