SpaceX rocket stage crashes into moon, scientists confirm

A SpaceX rocket stage floating in space since last year smashed into the moon at high speed early Wednesday morning, joining the ranks of meteoroids, wayward spacecraft ​and other pieces of space junk that have bombarded the lunar surface for ages, astronomers confirmed.

The school-bus-size object is the second stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched a lunar lander from Firefly Aerospace toward the moon in January 2025. While the rocket's booster returned to Earth, the upper stage remained in space after completing its primary mission.

The unintentional collision occurred at around 2:35 a.m. ET (0635 GMT), when the 4,000-kilogram rocket stage slammed into the moon at a speed of about 8,690 kilometers per hour. The impact had been predicted months in advance by astronomers tracking the object's trajectory.

The crash posed no threat to Earth, and no spacecraft orbiting the moon were positioned to capture close-up images of the impact.

But the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope in Chile detected glimmers of light associated with the impact. "We can confirm that the telescope detected spectral lines of sodium and lithium gas in the impact plume lasting for 5-10 minutes after impact," an ESO spokesperson told Reuters.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter probe and South Korea's Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter were also expected to take images of the impact site, though it could take days to receive that information.

The event comes as SpaceX continues to expand its space operations and commercial activities. In its first quarterly report since going public in June, the company reported strong revenue growth, with revenue reaching $7.8 billion, up more than 90% from a year earlier. Starlink revenue, which accounted for over half of total revenue, rose 66%, and revenue from SpaceX's AI business – which Musk has pitched as the company's future growth driver – surged about 250%. However, the stock fell by as much as 8% in after-hours trading following the release, as investors reacted to a sharp increase in capital expenditures, driven largely by AI infrastructure investments.

Space junk raising concern

Space debris has become a growing concern as more satellites and spacecraft enter orbit.

Experts have warned that amassing too much space junk around Earth could lead to a dangerous chain reaction of collisions known as the "Kessler syndrome."

Generally on such missions, SpaceX performs a maneuver to make sure the second stage "is safe per the appropriate rules and regulations," said Julianna Scheiman, director of NASA Science and Dragon Programs at SpaceX, at a Monday news conference.

"We did that," she continued, but "what has happened is essentially a mixture of solar activity and gravity forces have put it on a path towards the moon."

The rocket stage was just one of tens of thousands of pieces of human-made debris currently orbiting Earth. While the moon is constantly bombarded by natural objects such as meteoroids, impacts from artificial spacecraft remain relatively uncommon.

NASA and SpaceX are discussing ways to prevent future lunar impacts, Scheiman said. Under NASA's multibillion-dollar Artemis program, the US space agency plans to build a lunar base and send routine astronaut missions to the lunar surface later this decade. Protecting future spacecraft, equipment and lunar habitats from errant pieces of space junk will become a growing priority.

"It's one of the things that we're working in partnership with NASA and the other appropriate agencies is what is the best future disposal path for high-energy missions that are in the sun-Earth-moon system," said Scheiman.

Despite concerns over space debris, scientists also see research value in the collision.

NASA intentionally crashed stages from its Saturn V moon rocket into the moon in the 1970s to study the impacts' seismic effects. In 2009, the agency intentionally crashed a rocket stage into the moon as part of the LCROSS mission to study the plume of lunar material kicked up by the impact, leading to a key discovery that lunar dirt contains traces of water ice.

This time, "NASA scientists are planning to collect lunar data from the event and refine techniques for tracking objects in space," the US agency said.

(With input from agencies)