A SpaceX Rocket Crashed Into the Moon. Here’s What the Impact Site Looks Like Now.

On August 5, SpaceX accidentally slammed a big chunk of a Falcon 9 rocket into the moon. When I wrote about the possibility of this collision last week, the one silver lining was that, hey, at least we’d get to see what happens when a man-made rocket smashes into the moon.

The New York Times reports that the collision happened right on schedule, but nobody actually saw it live since lighting conditions and the location of the impact site made it difficult to get a clean view.

The discarded Falcon 9 upper stage crashed into the moon at about 5,400 miles per hour after spending more than a year wandering through space on an unstable orbit. Scientists expected a flash of light and a plume of dust large enough to spot from Earth. Instead, the moon mostly looked exactly like it always does.

A Dead SpaceX Rocket Slammed Into the Moon at 5,400 MPH

Researchers using the (and I promise this is the telescope’s actual name) European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile detected sodium and lithium lingering above the crash site minutes later, evidence they say almost certainly came from the collision. NASA estimates the impact carved out a crater roughly 60 feet wide and 12 feet deep.

Today, August 7, NASA and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute released the first pics of the moon post-crash. You can spot the difference in the photos above.

Back in April, I wrote about the scourge of mostly AI-created viral videos featuring meteors slamming into the moon, often needing viewers to believe that a lunar impact can be recorded with an iPhone while standing in your backyard. It’s no surprise that fake videos claiming to show the impact of the Falcon 9 rocket immediately flooded social media, as generative AI has made trash content easier to make than ever.

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