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Thursday, August 6Thursday, August 6
1 day · 2 summary articles
SpaceX rocket debris crashes into moon, creating plume detected by European telescope
SpaceX rocket stage to crash into Moon on Wednesday, creating new lunar crater
A four-tonne piece of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket crashed into the moon early Wednesday, creating a debris plume detected by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.
The impact occurred around 06:35 GMT near the moon’s Einstein Crater, according to Carl Schmidt, a research assistant professor of astronomy at Boston University who led the observations. The telescope recorded spectral lines of sodium and lithium gas in the plume, which lasted 5-10 minutes, said Dr. Bárbara Ferreira, ESO’s media manager. Ferreira noted the sodium likely originated from lunar soil, while the lithium may have come from the rocket itself .
The rocket’s upper stage had been adrift in space since January 2025, when a Falcon 9 launched two commercial lunar landers. Julianna Scheiman, SpaceX’s director of NASA Science and Dragon Programs, previously said the stage deviated from its calculated path due to a mix of solar activity and gravitational forces, sending it toward the moon unintentionally .
NASA and South Korea’s space agency had announced plans to capture images of the impact site using their lunar orbiters, but confirmation of those images was still pending as of Wednesday. The U.S. agency aims to establish a sustained human presence on the moon, making data on space debris collisions valuable for future missions .
The plume stretched several tens of kilometers, with Schmidt describing it as the most visible aspect of the collision. Benjamin Fernando, a postdoctoral fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, confirmed the detection using the telescope’s Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph, which identified the rocket’s chemical signature dispersed across the lunar surface .
The European Space Agency estimates over 46,000 pieces of space debris, totaling roughly 17,000 tonnes, currently orbit Earth. While meteorites frequently strike the moon, collisions with rocket parts or other artificial debris remain rare .
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3 further sources not geolocated
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welt.de · about 3 hours ago
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postimees · about 3 hours ago
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digi24 · about 3 hours ago
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