Cape Canaveral: A discarded SpaceX rocket stage is set to collide with the Moon on Wednesday, striking the lunar surface at an estimated 8,700kph and creating a crater that scientists hope will provide valuable insights into the effects of space debris.<\/p>
The upper stage, which launched two private lunar landers in January 2025, has been drifting through space since completing its mission. Experts say it was never intended to hit the Moon, but the collision became inevitable after the rocket was not redirected into a solar orbit.<\/p>
Space-tracking expert Bill Gray predicts the rocket will strike near Einstein Crater on the Moon’s sunlit western limb at about 5,400mph (8,700kph)\u2014around seven times the speed of sound.<\/p>
Although the impact flash is expected to last less than a second and may be too faint to see with the naked eye, scientists believe the collision will send a plume of dust and debris several kilometres into space. The material could remain visible through telescopes for several minutes, offering astronomers a rare opportunity to study the event.<\/p>
Researchers say the impact is equivalent to the force of about three tonnes of TNT and is expected to leave a crater measuring approximately 27 metres wide and 5 metres deep.<\/p>
According to Benjamin Fernando of Los Alamos National Laboratory, observations from both professional and amateur astronomers will help scientists better understand the risks that space debris poses to future lunar missions and astronauts.<\/p>
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter are expected to capture images of the impact site before and after the collision. Danuri will pass within a few kilometres of the rocket just minutes before impact, providing scientists with additional data.<\/p>
The 12-metre-long rocket stage, weighing around 4,500kg, carried Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost and Japan-based ispace’s lunar lander during its launch. While Blue Ghost successfully landed on the Moon, the ispace mission ended in a crash.<\/p>
The incident marks only the second known accidental rocket collision with the Moon, following the impact of a Chinese rocket stage on the lunar far side in 2022. Scientists say the latest event also highlights the growing challenge of managing space debris as Earth orbit becomes increasingly crowded.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cape Canaveral: A discarded SpaceX rocket stage is set to collide with the Moon on Wednesday, striking the lunar surface at an estimated 8,700kph and creating a crater that scientists hope will provide valuable insights into the effects of space debris. The upper stage, which launched two private lunar landers in January 2025, has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-international-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4876,"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4874\/revisions\/4876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}