SpaceX rocket section likely hit moon at high speed

A piece of a SpaceX rocket is believed to have struck the moon in the early hours of Wednesday, creating a small crater. The impact was likely close to the Einstein crater on the moon, in an already heavily cratered area, according to astronomer Bill Gray, who first predicted the object’s collision with the moon a few months ago. He estimated the speed of the crash to be a blistering 5,436 mph. NASA said ahead of the impact that both it and SpaceX were tracking the object and planned to collect lunar data to learn from the event.

The object was the upper stage, or section, of one of the company’s Falcon 9 rockets. This particular rocket launched in January 2025, propelling the Blue Ghost lander into space for a successful test landing on the moon. While the larger, lower sections of Falcon 9 rockets can return to Earth and be re-used, the upper stages become space junk. They’re still relatively big, about the height of a five-story building, according to astronomer Gray. He tracked the upper stage’s orbit around the Earth after it separated from the rocket.

Man-made objects have struck the moon before: in 2009, NASA deliberately crashed a rocket stage into the moon to study what would happen and collect material unearthed by the impact. A Chinese rocket stage also crashed into the moon in 2022, creating a double crater.

Dig deeper: Read my report on NASA’s ongoing effort to rescue an orbiting observatory.