IN BRIEF
- Space tracking experts believe a lunar lander from a SpaceX rocket crashed onto the moon on Wednesday.
- It's the latest incident of lunar litter, which could become more of a problem as the world races to put astronauts on the moon.
A piece of a SpaceX rocket that has been floating in space for the past year has slammed into the moon, according to scientists.
Although no-one observed the collision, a telescope in Chile spotted what astronomers have identified as a debris plume resulting from the crash.
Space tracking experts said it was inevitable that the leftover rocket segment would plough into the moon.
The school-bus-sized object is the second stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that had launched a lunar lander from Firefly Aerospace toward the moon in January 2025.
Weighing 4,000kg, the rocket piece had been due to hit the moon at around 4.35pm AEST on Wednesday, travelling at around 8,690km/h.
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Lunar litter
It's the latest instance of lunar litter — rubbish left behind on the moon — that some experts believe could become a greater concern as the United States and China race to put astronauts on the moon.
In 2022, a Chinese rocket unintentionally hit the moon following a lunar mission, and more stray rocket pieces could have struck the moon in past decades without scientists' knowledge.
Julianna Scheiman, director of Dragon Human Spaceflight at SpaceX, said the company is working with NASA to avoid future wrecks.
She also emphasised that the projected crash was not deliberate. A combination of solar activity and gravity accidentally put it on a collision course with the moon, according to Scheiman.
Carl Schmidt, a planetary scientist at Boston University, said he is "100 per cent certain" that his team's observations revealed signs of the lunar crash.
The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope also detected a stream of sodium and lithium stretching for tens of kilometres into space for at least five to 10 minutes following the impact, Schmidt added.
"We don't have images of the impact", but there is telescope evidence, Schmidt said in email correspondence shared with media.
Even before signs of the debris plume were spotted by the telescope in Chile, retired astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell noted that observations of the dead 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.
'No doubt in my mind'
"There's no doubt in my mind" that the rocket "is now in teeny, little pieces scattered over the moon near Einstein Crater", McDowell said.
Stargazers knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, from the ground to see the plume of dust and rock ejected from the resulting crater, let alone the flash of light from the impact.
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, but he came up empty.
"We knew this would be a long shot," Langbroek said.
Like McDowell, Langbroek said he had "no doubt" the rocket met its doom.
Visual confirmation, McDowell noted, will have to wait until NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter flies over the crash scene and sends back photos of the impact crater.
The US space agency does not expect that to happen until next week.
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