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A part of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket crashed into the moon near the Einstein Crater at 5,400 mph on Wednesday, Aug. 5
Images of the crash site were released by South Korea’s Danuri satellite on Thursday, Aug. 6
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is expected to examine the crash site for further analysis next week
The first images of the impact caused by a SpaceX rocket crash on the moon have been shared.
The Korea Aerospace Research Institute‘s Danuri satellite spacecraft captured images of the crash site while in orbit. The photos were released on Thursday, Aug. 6, one day after Elon Musk‘s SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage collided with the moon.
The Danuri captured before-and-after photos of the crash site. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is expected to view the site next week. The Danuri was launched by a SpaceX rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral in 2022.
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The company also sent a pair of private lunar landers to the moon last year. The upper stage from that launch is what crashed into the moon this week at 5,400 mph (8,700 kph), placed on an accidental collision course by solar activity and gravity, according to SpaceX.
The SpaceX rocket is believed to have crashed close to the Einstein Crater on the north side of the moon, according to the BBC and the New Scientist.
It was predicted to collide at around 2:35 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Aug. 5, per CBS News. The crash occurred at a speed of 5,400 mph, more than seven times the speed of sound.
This combination of images provided by NASA and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute shows an area of the moon’s surface before, left, Oct. 1, 2015, and after, right, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026, a SpaceX rocket segment collided with the moon
Credit: NASA, Korea Aerospace Research Institute via AP
Days prior to the event, experts predicted that the rocket part would likely create a new crater near the Einstein Crater, according to USA Today and Space.com. NASA confirmed the collision would not pose any danger to Earth.
Experts expected the rocket would “create a flash of light” as well as a “plume of ejecta — dust, regolith, other stuff mixed into it,” Benjamin Fernando, a postdoctoral researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, previously told ABC News.
The rocket that created the new crater is 230 feet tall and 12 feet wide, according to SpaceX’s website.
The rocket part is from a January 2025 launch that sent a lunar lander to the moon, per USA Today. It has remained in orbit around Earth since the mission, with each trip taking 26 days to complete.
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