What the telescopes caught
Observatories on Earth managed to capture the glowing aftermath of the Falcon 9 stage's collision with the moon. At the Paranal Observatory in Chile, a powerful telescope caught glimpses of the chemical signatures of sodium and lithium gas as they emerged from the dust cloud generated by the impact. The elements were visible for about five to ten minutes after the crash, giving scientists a fleeting but important look into the event's chemical makeup. South Korea’s Danuri spacecraft, which entered orbit around the Moon in December 2022, has taken images of the impact site, showing traces of material (ejecta) thrown out across the lunar surface. The University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank Observatory used the 76-metre Lovell Telescope as the receiving element in a bistatic radar experiment, where the transmitter and receiver are separated by a large distance. Radio transmissions from NASA’s Deep Space Network station near Madrid were directed towards the impact region, while the Lovell Telescope listened for faint radar echoes reflected from the resulting plume of dust and debris excavated from the lunar surface.
Carl Schmidt, the researcher leading the observations, suggested that the sodium likely came from the moon's soil, while the lithium probably stemmed from the rocket stage itself. Despite this, Schmidt was careful to point out that the data collected was not complete. He admitted the analysis was early and not fully confirmed, yet still believed it was vital to share the results quickly, as a foundation for more detailed studies to follow.
How it ended up there
The second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket was launched in January 2025 to deliver two lunar landers—Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost and ispace’s Resilience—toward their destinations. However, the rocket consumed more fuel than usual, leaving it with no way to return to Earth or to perform a controlled reentry. As a result, it remained in space, gradually being shaped by gravitational and solar forces that eventually directed it toward the moon. With no fuel left and no ability to maneuver, the stage was at the mercy of the universe's natural forces. On August 5, 2026, its orbit coincided with the position of the Moon and it crashed into the lunar surface at 5,400 miles per hour near Einstein Crater on the lunar far side, generating a new crater approximately 60 feet wide and 12 feet deep and excavating millions of pounds of lunar soil and ejecting rock and dust outward.
Julianna Scheiman, a SpaceX director responsible for NASA science and Dragon programs, stated that the rocket stage’s trajectory was the result of natural influences over time. Bill Gray, a well-known astronomer and the developer of celestial tracking software, was the first to accurately forecast the stage's eventual crash. By January, he had a rough idea of the stage's fate, and by April, he was confident enough to share his predictions publicly. Gray highlighted the broader issue, noting that although no one was in danger, the event revealed a need for more careful management of space debris.
Not the first, and not the last
Planned impacts on the moon are a long-standing practice in the history of space exploration. For example, NASA deliberately drove massive Saturn V rocket stages into the lunar surface during the 1970s to investigate how the moon responded to seismic activity. More recently, in 2009, NASA again crashed a rocket stage, intentionally generating a plume of debris to help scientists locate water ice in the moon's soil. These deliberate impacts have historically been used for scientific research and have produced valuable data. While this was an accidental impact, astronomers made plans to observe the event to advance our understanding of crater formation on the Moon. Given that we know the size, shape and mass of the rocket body, studying the resulting crater will help us better understand the lunar surface and its impact history. South Korea’s Danuri orbiter captured images of the crater the day after impact, providing direct confirmation of the event.
Unintentional crashes, however, are much rarer but still significant. In March 2022, a Chinese rocket stage unintentionally struck the moon, raising concerns about the risks posed by uncontrolled space debris. Other nations have also experienced mishaps in their lunar missions, with some landers crashing instead of landing safely. Russia’s Luna-25 in 2023, India’s Chandrayaan-2 in 2019, and Israel’s Beresheet lander, which carried microscopic tardigrades, all resulted in crashes, some of which may have lasting effects, such as the potential survival of organisms from the Israeli mission.Keeping space free of clutter is becoming increasingly important, both in low Earth orbit where there are now more than 16,000 active satellites but more than 1.2 million pieces of debris larger than 1cm in size, and around the Moon where more infrastructure is planned. With several countries aiming to put humans on the Moon for long duration missions, the problem of space debris and impacts will become increasingly pressing. Human-made objects on the moon now total approximately 209 tons, including spent rocket stages, spacecraft, scientific instruments, and mission debris left since the Soviet Union’s Luna 2 became the first spacecraft to reach the moon in 1959.
As lunar missions become more frequent, the moon is expected to grow increasingly crowded, making the issue of space debris more pressing. While this incident is not new, it highlights the growing need for clear, international guidelines on how to responsibly dispose of spacecraft and other hardware to prevent future uncontrolled crashes and to protect the moon’s environment.
The Falcon rocket’s upper stage — a fat cylinder more than 40 feet (12 meters) long — hoisted two private lunar landers from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 15, 2025. It ended up adrift after putting Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost and ispace’s Resilience on course for the moon. Resilience wrecked, but Blue Ghost aced its touchdown, becoming the first private spacecraft to do so. The first stage of the rocket did what it was designed to do, took the second – or upper – stage and the payload of spacecraft into low Earth orbit, detached, and returned safely to a landing pad on Earth to be refurbished for reuse. The upper stage engines then ignited and took the spacecraft on their intended trajectory to the Moon. However, once it had released the spacecraft, its job was complete and it was left in a high elliptical orbit around the Earth. In a statement, SpaceX said that, for most missions, the company carries out a controlled de-orbit of the Falcon 9 second stage, so that it safely re-enters Earth’s atmosphere over the ocean. However, the company added that for payloads headed to the Moon, like this one, the de-orbit manoeuvre is not always possible.
The moon is the new go-to destination in space, with NASA envisioning a stampede of robotic craft over the next several years to form the foundation for a sustainable lunar base. Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin will provide the lunar landers for NASA’s Artemis astronauts. Musk’s Starship is making steady progress in test flights from Texas. Bezos’ Blue Moon lander has yet to launch. One or both landers will take part in next year’s Artemis III, a docking rehearsal in orbit around Earth. A lunar touchdown by astronauts — the first since NASA’s Apollo moonshots — could follow as soon as 2028."Things are going to get a lot busier near the moon," McDowell said. "At that point an impact like this on the lunar surface plowing up huge amounts of dust going for hundreds of miles around is not going to be acceptable."