Former SpaceX Rocket Allegedly Hit the Moon, NASA is Looking for a Former Collision

SpaceX facility in the United States. Photo: x @SpaceX)

JAKARTA - The upper stage of an out-of-service SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is suspected of hitting the Moon on Wednesday morning. The impact is estimated to have released energy equivalent to about 3 tons of TNT, but scientists have not confirmed the impact visually.

Anadolu Agency, quoted Wednesday, August 5, reported that the object was registered with the name 2025-010D. According to NASA and independent tracking calculations, the object is estimated to hit the Moon's surface near the Einstein and Bell craters at around 06.35 or 10.35 GMT.

NASA's Near Earth Object Research Center previously determined that the rocket stage had a 100 percent chance of hitting the Moon.

The upper stage of the rocket is the part of the rocket that works after the initial stage is detached. This part is usually tasked with carrying the payload to a certain trajectory before it is no longer used.

Astronomer Bill Gray, who tracked the object using publicly available open-source data, estimated that the rocket stage, weighing about 4,900 kilograms, hit the Moon's surface at a speed of 2.43 kilometers per second.

If calculated per hour, the speed is around 8,700 kilometers per hour. The impact is estimated to release 14.5 billion joules of energy, equivalent to about 3 tons of TNT.

The rocket stage is part of the Falcon 9 that launched Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost 1 Moon lander from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 15, 2025.

After successfully releasing the lander, the upper stage of the rocket remained in a highly elliptical orbit around Earth. An elliptical orbit is an oblong trajectory, not a perfect circle.

The Sun's gravitational force and radiation pressure then slowly changed the trajectory of the object. These changes made the rocket stage return to the Moon unintentionally.

Unlike Earth, the Moon has no atmosphere that can slow down incoming objects. Therefore, space objects heading for the Moon can directly hit its surface.

NASA estimates that the collision created a new crater about 18 meters wide and 3.7 meters deep. The collision is also estimated to throw dust and rocks from the Moon outward as ejecta material.

Ejecta is material that is thrown off the surface of a celestial body after a collision.

NASA confirmed that the collision did not endanger Earth. The space agency said natural meteoroids with similar energy hit the Moon about every six days. However, collisions involving man-made objects are much less common.

Anadolu Agency said that NASA through the Meteoroid Environments Office will try to observe the collision with a telescope from Earth. However, lighting conditions and weather can make observations difficult.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the ShadowCam instrument on South Korea's Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter will also look for opportunities to photograph the impact site before and after the event.

Photos of the collision site are not immediately available. NASA said the images could take several days, depending on lighting, orbital time, and spacecraft position.

Data from this event is expected to help scientists understand the behavior of material bursts due to collisions. The data can also be used to study the geology of the Moon and refine models for future exploration missions.

A recent scientific study of 2025-010D warns that the increased interest in lunar exploration is beginning to create new problems. The region between Earth and the Moon now contains more objects that have not been well tracked.

NASA said it was still in communication with SpaceX regarding the rocket's stage and trajectory. The agency also expressed its commitment to responsible space debris mitigation and disposal practices.

Even so, NASA notes that controlled impacts on the Moon's surface are still considered a safe disposal method for some missions. In some missions, the method is sometimes the only practical option.