The science outlet Space reports on what one might call a bit of a dust-up on the lunar surface:
From Wednesday's article:
Early this morning, a SpaceX rocket slammed into the moon at seven times the speed of sound. Now, lunar orbiters are trying to get a look at the aftermath.
This morning (Aug. 5) at about 2:35 a.m. EDT (0635 GMT), the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket crashed into the moon. To dissect what exactly happened, scientists are looking for imagery of the crash site, with the help of a couple of moon probes.
It's not every day that a rocket goes full-tilt into the moon. It's a bit of a special event within the astronomy community!
Here it is via the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia:
Per Space, the chunk of debris that impacted the moon was actually "the rocket's 9,000-pound upper stage." It was part of a 2025 lunar lander mission, but there wasn't enough fuel to get it back to Earth to burn up in our atmosphere as is standard, leading SpaceX to perform a "different maneuver" in an attempt to deal with the upper stage.
Alas, "a mixture of solar activity and gravity forces" directed the debris toward the moon, leading to its impact on the surface.
That might be a bit hard to spot, so here's a quick loop that shows it a little more clearly:
I gotta say I'm thinking there's not a lot of that rocket left!
A Korean craft, meanwhile, managed to snap a shot of the crash site:
Elon being Elon, of course, he couldn't resist sharing a bit of fanciful AI-generated "footage" of the incident:
Liberals basically all had the same thought, so I'll let "bug girl" give you their perspective on this one:
🤣🤣🤣
Personally I think it's rather cool, moon blemishes notwithstanding!
Watch our latest video 👇
