SpaceX rocket slams into moon after months drifting through space

Part of a SpaceX rocket has undoubtedly crashed into the moon as predicted, scientists say, in a rare event watched closely by stargazers.

The top section of the Falcon 9 rocket was expected to make contact about 5.35pm AEST on Wednesday, after drifting through space for more than a year.

Although the 8700km/h collision had yet to be officially confirmed early on Thursday, space tracking experts said it was inevitable that the leftover rocket segment ploughed into the moon.

NASA earlier confirmed the crash posed zero danger to Earth but it’s the latest instance of lunar litter, a problem that many fear could worsen as the US and China race to put astronauts on the moon. 

Retired astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell noted that observations of the dead four-tonne upper stage on Tuesday night showed it heading straight for the moon.

The anticipated crash site was a dusty, barren patch near Einstein Crater on the moon’s sunlit western limb – near the edge of the near and far sides, which is especially difficult to observe from Earth.

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“There’s no doubt in my mind” that the rocket “is now in teeny, little pieces scattered over the moon near Einstein Crater”, McDowell told The Associated Press.

“As a physicist, I know that what goes up must come down,” he said.

McDowell said even in the unlikely event that an asteroid struck the rocket during its final stretch, the pieces still would have hit the moon at the same place.

Scientists were on standby to monitor the impact in the hopes of learning how space crashes alter the moon’s surface.

But stargazers knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, to see the plume of dust and rock ejected from the resulting crater, let alone the flash of light from the impact, from the ground.

Orbiting spacecraft had the best chance of witnessing anything – or at least observing the crater after the fact.

Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek was among those aiming his telescope at the moon at the appointed time. He came up empty but still had “no doubt” the rocket met its doom.

“We knew this would be a long shot,” Langbroek said.

The Falcon 9 originally launched in January 2025 to send two commercial landers toward the moon, with the leftover rocket hull left floating in deep space.

SpaceX director Julianna Scheiman said the company followed standard rules after the launch, but a combination of gravity and solar energy pushed the lingering rocket piece toward the moon.

“For high-energy missions, we need to perform a different manoeuvre to ensure the second stage itself is safe per the appropriate rules and regulations,” she said.

“We did that here for the Ispace and Blue Ghost missions’ second stage, and what has happened is essentially a mixture of solar activity and gravity forces have put it on a path towards the moon.”

Independent astronomers first spotted the collision course using public tracking data, which NASA later confirmed.

Researchers estimated the rocket stage would hit the moon at about 8750km/h, leaving a crater between 20 and 30 metres wide. 

While the impact itself would last only a second, scientists had hoped telescopes would capture the cloud of debris thrown into space.

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The collision would not be visible to the naked eye, and there was no public livestream. However, NASA teams were expected to photograph the aftermath.

Visual confirmation, McDowell noted, will have to wait for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to fly over the crash scene and send back photos of the impact crater. The space agency doesn’t expect that to happen until next week.

Professor of astronomy and physics at Western University in Canada Dr Paul Wiegert said tracking the crash would be critical as space agencies prepared for long-term human missions.

“What happens when an object crashes into the moon? We know it makes a crater, and of course it does eject material, but we don’t really understand that process in great detail,” he said.

“And now that we have more spacecraft, and soon to have astronauts on the moon, we really want to understand that process better.”

SpaceX says it is already working alongside NASA and other space agencies to refine disposal methods for future deep-space missions.

“As a scientist, I also am very excited to see the observation,” Scheiman said.

 “But it’s one of the things that we’re working in partnership with NASA and the other appropriate agencies: What is the best future disposal path for high-energy missions that are in the sun-Earth-moon system?”

- CNN and Associated Press